Gratin Dauphinois - Gratin of Potatoes: Day 1

Gratin Dauphinois is very easy to make, but you need to make sure you do the right things. This recipe is basically potatoes with cream and cheese, baked in the oven.

So the ingredients are:
- potatoes
- milk
- heavy cream (not light cream)
- pepper
- salt
- nutmeg

Make sure you slice your potatoes as thin as possible and do not wash them after slicing them. Second, make sure you use warm milk/cream in same amounts. If you don't use same amounts of milk and cream your dish will not work. I once tried it with cream only and the result was a lumpy gratin dauphinois, because all the water evaporated and the fat was left over in the gratin. If you use too much milk on the other hand, you will get a watery gratin dauphinois. And keep in mind that you add enough milk/cream just to cover all the potatoes. You bake it at 180 °C for about 30 minutes.

Watch in this video how I make the potato gratin:

I baked it for too long and I used too few cream/milk mixture. The potatoes were dry and the cream was separated into fat and water. That shifting is caused by a temperature above cooking temperature. Next time, I add more cream/milk. Do not let it dry out. Also, do not use light cream, but full cream (I used light cream of 7% fat because I didn't have anything else). The reason why you need to use full cream is because the lower the fat percentage, the more chance there is that the cream will separate. So use a high fat percentage to put in the potato gratin. You will need at least 30% fat percentage of cream. Additionally, I didn't use the right baking pan, next time I use ceramics instead of metal, because metal is too high in heat transfer. The sides will overcook and the cream will separate as a result of this. Cream does NOT like high heat. (and those behind the gratin are balsamic mushrooms, which I also have a recipe for)

Hint: bake the potato gratin until you can use a stick and push through the gratin without any resistance.

You can see that the sauce is shifted into water and fat particles

I'm going to make this again later on, with full cream and with a ceramics baking pan. I'll give you an update about the end result. Speaking about cooking for dummies. I'm in that category, but I'm learning.

Interesting to read about the fat percentage: 

http://www.dekooktips.com/tip-truc/room-k.htm

I have made it again here and I was successful.