I make two potato dishes every year for Thanksgiving: some kind of white potato (usually mashed) and sweet potatoes (often, also mashed). Potatoes are one of (if not my all-time favorite) foods, and back home, my mother used to make scalloped potatoes for us when we were little. So, for this month’s Recipe Redux challenge (vintage side dishes), I thought I would present you with a pairing of potato sides: a potato gratin to mirror the layered dish of my childhood and the other, a potato galette, an experiment I made for my family last year at Christmas.
The first dish, the gratin pictured above (and recipe below) came on the heels of a delicious filet Mignon David cooked for me awhile back. The steak was a special treat, and it was bathed in a luscious cream and peppercorn sauce based on a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. But at the end of the night, with the steak all gone, we were left with a hefty portion of the cream sauce leftover. So I took the extra and poured it over thinly sliced potato layers and turned it into a baked gratin.
Doesn’t that also embody the spirit of healthy home cooking? I know this has a bit of heavy cream in the ingredients list, but making the most of leftovers is something that I think helps home cooks keep cooking at home, rather than picking up some quick and easy take-out.
Then I have this potato galette with onions and caraway, which adorned our Christmas table last year. It was such a fun idea and translated well into a composed, elegant holiday dish (in case you’re still hunting for ideas for tomorrow… if not, it’s fabulous at Christmas, too).
