Potato-Bacon Gratin

Let’s start at the very beginning (I have the von Trapps on the brain – don’t ask):

I love Shoestring fans. When I posted on our Facebook Fan Page the other day with a friendly game of “Guess That Recipe,” you responded in droves. Many of you got it right, many didn’t care what the heck I called it as long as I coughed up the recipe, and still others thought it was a sweet apple dish. Here’s where my mind went…

First, I have to post the recipe for this baby ASAP. Nobody likes a tease. Or a bully. Or someone with bad breath. Or people who say things like, “No offense but …” Or people who don’t replace the toilet paper roll when there’s only a few sheets left. But especially not a recipe teaser. Who likes that?

Second, I have to rework this as a sweet apple dish. How did I not see that before? With caramel sauce. Sort of like an apple tart tatin, but maybe without the crust. What do you think? A sweet, gooey apple gratin, or apple tart tatin? What would I do without you all? Comments, please!

Third, an empty toilet paper roll would taste good if it were covered in bacon.

Let’s get down to business…

This dish is best served either warm, or at room temperature. It smells heavenly when it’s baking, and even better when it first comes out of the oven, but it takes a few moments for the potatoes to absorb any of the liquid that remains in the dish. If you wait about 20 minutes after taking the dish out of the oven, your patience shall be richly rewarded. It’s lovely as a side dish, but it can easily take center stage for any meal.

A word about the white truffle oil in this recipe. It is an expensive ingredient, no doubt. That’s why it is optional. But truffle oil is one of an elite group of ingredients for which a little goes quite a long way. Add less than a teaspoon of truffle oil to butternut squash soup, and its richness and aroma will linger gracefully in your nose and permeate the whole meal. Here, it adds that really special something to the potatoes and bacon, but this dish simply will not disappoint, truffle oil or no truffle oil.

Potato-Bacon Gratin
SERVES 4

Ingredients
6 ounces bacon (any gf kind you like – I used apple smoked), cut into a large dice
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
1 cup milk (whole milk or light cream work best – low fat is okay)
1 1/2 teaspoons white truffle oil (optional)
1 1/2 to 2 pounds potatoes, peeled and sliced in cross-section as thinly as possible
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup grated cheese (Gruyere — a lightly sweet, nutty-tasting cheese — works best, but a good Swiss is nice, too — really, anything that melts well and is flavorful)

1. Grease (with butter) the ovenproof dish of your choice and set it aside. I used a 9-inch spring form pan so that I could remove the sides and be able to show you the dish in all of its decadence. But a gratin is typically baked in some sort of casserole dish and then served in the same dish. It needn’t come out just so when you serve it. Please be mindful, though, if you decide to use a spring form pan to place it in a rimmed baking sheet before baking because the pan will certainly leak.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

3. In a medium sized, heavy saucepan (I have a fondness for Dutch ovens, so that’s what I used), place the onion and bacon. Over medium heat (not too high, now), saute the onions with the bacon until the onions are translucent and the fat is rendered from the bacon. If you have the heat too high, the onions will cook faster than the bacon fat melts and you will have bacon that is not properly cooked, burned onions, or some other permutation. Take it nice and slow (about 7 or 8 minutes). Remove the onions, bacon, and as much of the rendered fat as possible from the pan, and retire them to a separate bowl. Set the bowl aside.

{Not for nothing, but when I made this, I doubled up on the onions and bacon, and used half the extra the following morning in a fabulous Crustless Quiche}

4. Next, pour the milk and (optional) truffle oil into the same saucepan that the bacon and onions had just been in. Over medium-high heat, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly so that the milk does not burn. That should set you back about 5 or 6 minutes.

5. Layer the potatoes into the prepared baking dish all the way up, until you run out of potatoes, sprinkling salt and pepper on each layer as you make your way to the top. Slowly pour the milk mixture over the top of the potatoes, taking care to make sure that it is spread evenly over the entire dish. Top with the bacon and onions, then with the grated cheese – both evenly over the top of the dish. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil, leaving a gap at the top so the cheese does not stick to the foil during baking. You might even spray the top of the foil with cooking oil.

6. Place the gratin in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the potatoes are softened and the gratin is very fragrant. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has baked off.

7. Allow the gratin to stand for at least 20 minutes before slicing it into wedges and serving it (see discussion above of patience as a virtue).

Warmly,

Nicole

P.S. For more recipes like this, pick up your copy of Gluten-Free on a Shoestring, the cookbook. It has 125 recipes, plus loads of tips and strategies to make gluten-free eating more affordable.

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