Since we've officially hit high-cheese-season, I've had several requests from friends and readers alike for our (read: Dan's) tartiflette recipe. This recipe serves about 4, or 2 hungry people looking for leftovers. For convenience I've provided both the US and metric units...
Ingredients:
1.2 kilograms/2.65 pounds of potatoes
400 grams/about 1 pound of lardon or diced bacon (We use a smoked lardon.)
4 medium sized yellow onions
500 grams/1 pound of reblochon cheese or other gooey cow's milk cheese
2 - 3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
1 bottle of Apremont wine or other dry white wine (preferably from the Savoie region of France)
3 T of butter - 2 T for sautéing onions (or equivalent amount of olive oil if you're using that instead), and 1 T for greasing the pan
Steps:
1. Pour yourself, and anyone who is assisting you, a glass of Apremont. Sip sip sip. Repeat as necessary. Also gather up your ingredients.
2. If you don't like skin on your potatoes, peel them, but it's not a must (we do not peel ours). Then boil them until a knife comes out cleanly (about 30 minutes-ish). If your oven takes forever to heat up like ours, preheat it now to 230°C/450°F (or to number "7" or "8" if you also have a weird-non-temperature-telling-oven like we do).
3. When the potatoes are done, drain the pot and sit aside to cool naturally while you do the rest of the prep work.
4. Slice the onions and saute in olive oil or butter (your choice, we like olive oil) for a few minutes.
5. Add the lardon/bacon to the sautéing onions, and continue to saute for a few more minutes.
6. Next take a casserole or gratin dish, and butter the inside of it.
7. Slice the potatoes into thick slices (1/2 inch-ish). Take half of the potato slices and line the bottom of the casserole dish with them (it will be more than one layer thick).
8. Add 2/3 of the onion/lardon mixture as the next layer in the casserole dish.
9. Add the remaining potato slices on top of the onion/lardon layer.
10. Add the last 1/3 of the onion/lardon mixture on top of that.
11. Spread the crème fraiche on top of that top layer.
12. {Cheese rind rant alert} Now onto the cheese: you're either an "I eat the rind" kind of person, or you're not. Almost one year of living in France has NOT made me an "I eat the rind" kind of girl, so when Dan makes this he is kind enough to remove the rind for me before baking. Sidenote: He has recently learned that using a wire cheese cutter is the easiest way (so far) of removing said cheese rind, and wastes the least amount of cheese. However, you are more than welcome to use the rind if you're that kind of person. I'm not judging. (I'm judging a little.) {End cheese rind rant alert} Either way, it's at this stage that rind or rindless you should halve the cheese lengthwise and put it on top of the potatoes. Put it more towards the middle so it all doesn't bubble and spill over the edges (lesson learned by moi).
{I'm pretty sure the cheese spilled over the sides on this one, as mentioned above. Just halving it and putting it closer to the middle is what we do now...}
13. Finishing touch: Pour a little Apremont or dry white wine over the whole delicious mixture (we use half a glass) before putting in the oven.
14. Place in the oven, and bake until the cheese has melted and it's browned a bit. This usually takes about 20-25 minutes. I like to leave it in longer because I like when it's really brown on top. Eat while it's warm.
PS - Traditional sides: Tartiflette is supposed to be served with a green salad and offerings of cornichons/pickles. It should also be served with Apremont or some other type of dry white wine from the Savoy region, however any dry white will do if you have trouble procuring some from Haute Savoie. Bon ap!
Great, now I'm hungry.
A la prochaine friends...
Honey
