There are few dishes in the world more deeply satisfying than a perfectly made Potato Gratin. And by perfectly made, I mean the potatoes are cooked just until tender (not falling apart), are enveloped in a creamy (not curdled) sauce, and are well-seasoned (not bland). Of course, it goes without saying that  a copious quantity of cheese should be used and it should be of excellent quality and aged to boot. In a dish this simple, each ingredient counts.

Even though my earlier Potato Gratin post features a master recipe and SEVEN variations, there appears to be no end to the improvisation on this favorite dish. Why just last week, it occurred to me that I could make this dish more center-of-the-plate worthy by increasing the protein as well as the overall flavor impact.

So that’s what we have here. Add a salad, and call it DINNER. I promise, you won’t hear any complaints.

Potato Gratin with Ricotta, Pancetta & Melted Leeks

When local leeks hit the Northwest farmers markets in the spring, I can’t get enough of them. They are marvelous in so many dishes and the perfect partner for potatoes. I can’t decide if I like this dish better with Cheddar or Gruyere. The latter is perhaps a bit more sophisticated when you want to pull out all the stops. If you do use cheddar, it must be aged. A young cheddar will curdle.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

4 ounces diced pancetta

Melted Leeks
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or perhaps a bit more)
4 cups sliced fresh leeks (white and pale green portions only) (1 pound trimmed)
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried)
fine sea salt, to taste

Ricotta Filling
2 cups whole milk ricotta
6 tablespoons cream
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
fine sea salt, to taste

Cream Sauce
3 tablespoons unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 cup chicken stock
¾ cup heavy cream
3 cloves garlic, finely minced, optional

Layering
3 pounds baking potatoes (Russet Burbank), peeled, sliced 1/4-inch thick, and covered with cold water
fine sea salt
freshly ground white or black pepper
4 cups grated Gruyere, Emmenthaler, cheddar, or other well-aged, melting cheese of choice (8 ounces)
½ cup finely grated parmesan

1. Butter 9- by 12-inch, 12-cup capacity, baking dish.
2. In a small saute pan, cook the pancetta, turning often, until it is browned and most of the fat is rendered. (Pancetta is usually fatty enough to not require added fat for the pan. However, if the pan becomes dry, add a little vegetable oil and continue.) Reserve.
3. To make the Leek Filling, melt the butter in a large sauté pan, add the leeks, and cook over low heat until the leeks are very soft but not browned. If the pan becomes dry, either add a bit more butter or water, and partially cover to complete the cooking. Remove from the heat, add salt to taste, and reserve.
4. To make the Ricotta Filling, in a processor fitted with the knife blade, puree the ricotta until it is as smooth as possible, and then, while continuing to puree, gradually add the cream and then the garlic. Incorporate salt to taste, and reserve.
5. To make the Cream Sauce, in a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and a couple tablespoons of chicken stock until smooth. Add the rest of the chicken stock, cream, and garlic, and whisk to combine. Reserve.
6. Before you begin layering the gratin, make sure you have all components prepared and lined up on the work counter.
7. Carefully dry the potato slices with a clean kitchen towel and begin arranging them, slightly overlapping, into the dish. When you complete the layering, you will have four layers of potatoes and three layers of fillings. The top layer of potatoes is covered with the remaining sauce and cheese only (no leek or ricotta filling).
8. Season each layer of potatoes rather generously with salt and pepper. Then, over the first three layers, distribute ¼ of the grated cheese, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan, 1/3 of the pancetta, 1/3 of the Melted Leeks, 1/3 of the Ricotta Filling, and ¼ of the Cream Sauce.
9. Proceed with layering, ending with a top layer of potatoes, final ¼ of the Cream Sauce, and remainder of the cheeses.
10. Cover with a dome of foil (it should not touch the cheese), and bake in the upper third of the oven at 375º for 30-45 minutes, until the gratin is bubbling lightly. Remove foil and continue cooking for a total time of 60-75 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender when tested with a fork and the top is nicely browned.
11. This dish can wait, loosely covered, for half an hour or so. To hold it any longer, stop the cooking process just before the last bit of liquid has been absorbed, cool, cover and refrigerate, and then reheat gently, covered with foil, in a 325º oven for about 30 minutes before serving. It is actually much easier to cut neatly when baked ahead and tastes even better the next day.

Serves 4-6.

Copyright 2011 Susan S. Bradley. All rights reserved.

We are in love with full-meal salads in the OtherWorldly Kitchen, and I scramble every week to come up with a couple of new and memorable offerings. However, it’s challenging to make a dinner salad  if seafood, poultry, or meat is not included.

Enter the indispensible log of mild goat cheese. It’s always on hand in my kitchen, because it lends itself to so many dishes. I wouldn’t want to be without it.

Luckily, the Northwest is home to some of the best goat cheese makers in the country (or the world for that matter). Some of these are highlighted at the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project and in the informative book, Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest by Tami Parr. For this salad I used one of the Rivers Edge chèvres, Up In Smoke, which is a fresh chèvre wrapped in maple leaves, spritzed with bourbon, and then lightly smoked. The flavor is lush and evocative.

I’m not sure what made me include potatoes in this salad, other that they look so appealing this time of year, freshly dug, in the farmers markets. Or maybe it was to ensure that MauiJim wouldn’t be raiding the frig an hour after eating dinner.

Regardless, the combination of roasted potatoes, butternut squash, and sweet pimiento pepper is sensational with fresh rosemary, salad greens, Candied Spiced Walnuts or Pecans  and Honey Mustard Vinaigrette. It’s almost a bonus that the salad is also beautiful.

Roasted Fall Vegetable Salad with Warm Goat Cheese & Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

One of my new favorites, this fall salad has a lot going for it: contrasting flavors, textures, and temperatures; an array of fall colors; and dynamite taste.

Vegetables
1 pound small Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed, and cut into 4-8 wedges, depending on size of potatoes
¼ butternut squash, seeded, peeled and cut into wedges about the same size as the potatoes
1 sweet pimento pepper or red bell pepper, cored, seeded, ribbed, and cut into wedges about the same size as the potatoes
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
1 clove garlic, peeled, and minced or pressed
2 tablespoons cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Honey Mustard Vinaigrette (below)

Goat Cheese
two 1-inch thick slices of fresh, mild goat cheese from a 2-inch diameter log
2 tablespoon all purpose flour
2 tablespoons fine dry bread crumbs or panko
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil

Salad
2 large handfuls of baby salad greens

Garnish
½ cup Candied Spiced Walnuts or Pecans, coarsely chopped
2 small sprigs of fresh rosemary

1. To prepare the vegetables for roasting, in a large bowl toss together the potatoes, squash, pepper, rosemary, garlic, oil, salt, and pepper.
2. Arrange vegetables evenly on an edged baking sheet. They should not be overlapping.
3. Roast at 350° for about 15-20 minutes, until vegetables are tender and beginning to caramelize. Remove from the oven and let cool. This step can be completed a few hours ahead, in which case refrigerate the vegetables and bring back to room temperature before serving.
4. Prepare the vinaigrette (below) and refrigerate.
5. To prepare the goat cheese, in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, bread crumbs, salt.
6. Just before serving, coat each slice of goat cheese in the flour mixture. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a small skillet and sauté the goat cheese rounds for about 2 minutes on each side, or until nicely browned and warmed through.
7. While the goat cheese rounds are cooking, in a large mixing bowl, toss the salad greens with enough of the vinaigrette to coat each leaf. (You will have vinaigrette left over for a couple more salads later.)
8. Remove the goat cheese rounds from the sauté pan and pat lightly with paper towels to remove any excess oil.
9. Arrange the warm goat cheese in the middle of 2 large pasta plates, and then arrange the dressed greens around them.
10. Quickly toss the vegetables with a little of the vinaigrette and tuck them into the greens in each of the salads.
11. Top each salad with Candied Spiced Walnuts or Pecans, freshly ground black pepper, and a sprig of fresh rosemary.
12. Serve immediately.

Makes 2 dinner-size salads.

Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

I almost always have this lovely vinaigrette on hand in the fall. It complements fall’s abundance of apples, pears, winter squash, toasted nuts, and baby greens and winter greens alike. For an even more pronounced apple flavor, use apple syrup rather than honey. Make a double batch if you like. It keeps for days in the frig.

9 tablespoons cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons natural process apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons honey or Lopez Island Farm Apple Syrup
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, peeled, and minced or pressed
½ teaspoon fine sea salt

1. In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, honey, mustard, garlic and salt until emulsified.
2. Taste and balance sweetness (honey), acidity (vinegar), and salt.
3. Pour vinaigrette into a squeeze bottle, cap, and refrigerate.  

Makes about 1 cup.

I am not afraid of mashed potatoes. I owe this to my mother, who, in an age of stay-at-home moms, decided that she would instead become the CFO of a major wine distributor in Seattle. This meant that from the second grade on, Monday through Thursday, I made dinner for the family. Mashed potatoes and pan gravy were almost always on the menu. Although no one ever complained if my mashed potatoes were gluey or runny, I nonetheless learned through trial and error and many years of Zen-like concentration to make them perfect every time.

LunaCafe’s Never Fail Mashed Potatoes Tips & Tricks

If I had a secret to making great mashed potatoes when I was a kid, it was to time them so that they were the last thing I put on the table. If the potatoes were done too early, I drained them, put them back in the pan with the butter, covered them with a lid and a couple of kitchen towels, and left them on the warm stove top. Just before serving, I threw in salt and pepper, mashed them quickly with a potato masher, and then drizzled in just enough milk to get the right consistency. After I scooped them into the serving bowl, I added a tablespoon of soft butter on top, which melted immediately. I learned that visual trick from the “fancy” neighbor lady, who set an elegant Sunday dinner table.

Today I understand a bit more about potatoes and why they act the way they do when cooked and mashed. Here are a few things that are helpful to consider.

·Select large, high-quality, local potatoes. Potatoes should be firm and smooth with no discolored or greenish patches and no sprouts.

·Store potatoes in a cool (preferably 45º-50º), dark location. Below 40º, potatoes begin to develop a sweet taste, so do not store in the refrigerator. Potatoes stored at room temperature should be used within a week.

·Select potatoes with high starch and low moisture content, such as Russet Burbank or Yukon Gold potatoes.

·Peel, then cut potatoes into fairly uniform 1½-inch chunks, so that they will cook evenly.

·Always put peeled potatoes immediately in cold water to cover to prevent discoloration.

·Always begin cooking potatoes in cold water.

·Boil only until potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork. Longer boiling will water-log the potatoes and make a liquid mash.

·When tender, drain potatoes immediately in a colander.

·There is usually no need to do this, but if your drained potatoes seem a little wet, either put them back in the empty pan and on the still warm stovetop for a few minutes, the pan covered with a couple layers of paper towels to absorb the steam, being careful not to scorch them; or put them on an edged baking sheet and bake at 350º for 15 minutes.

·Put your additional ingredients in a large mixing bowl and let warm to room temperature while the potatoes are boiling.

·Quickly put cooked potatoes through a potato ricer, mash with a new age potato masher (Available from Oxo and Rosle, these newer mashers have a flat face, a grid pattern and crisp edges where the potato meets the masher. They easily mimic the extrusion effect of a ricer and produce fluffy mashed potatoes with minimum physical exertion), or whip with a hand held mixer, adding only enough additional liquid (milk or cream) to create a light but not wet consistency. It should take no more than two minutes to mash your potatoes.

·Overly vigorous or lengthy mashing or whipping can cause your mashed potatoes to become gluey. NEVER use a processor or blender to whip potatoes.

·Serve potatoes immediately after whipping; or spoon into a serving bowl, cover, and keep warm in a 200º oven for up to 1 hour.

·Cooked potato dishes do not freeze well. The water in the potato separates from the starch, making the thawed and heated potato dish watery.

Traditional mashed potatoes with butter, milk, salt, and pepper are one of the world’s great dishes, and I could eat them every day. But it’s also fun to push the boundaries of the concept and see where it can take you.

I developed the following two recipes to serve with Southwest-style Smokey Chipotle Meatloaf. (That recipe will post on Friday.)