Christmas Recipe

This is a recipe-post inspired by happycase's thread about what to cook for your family during the holiday season. It's a Potato Gratin thing that's partially responsible for me being on a diet right now. I figured it deserved its own thread, I've been wanting to share this for a while.

It will take about an hour from start to having it on your plate and it's quite easy as you can't really do anything wrong. Your guests should love this, children too.

Kartoffelgratin alà Terp

You will need:

Potatoes (the waxy ones or the other, depends on what you like)

Cheese (I'll come to that later on)

Cream (the liquid type, the stuff that you can whip - but don't)

Garlic (fresh, not powder)

Salt (any kind)

Nutmeg (preferably fresh, + grater)

A baking sheet

An oven.

And one of these things, or any slicer-like thing that can be used in a similar fashion:

You will use this to slice up the potatoes into thin "crisp-like" slices. Well not quite as thin as crisps, but close. Exact thickness doesn't really matter, the thicker you make them, the longer they're gonna take in the oven, as we are using them raw like that. Peel them first of course. Depending on their size and the size of your baking sheet, you will need about 5 big or 10 small potatoes, just make sure to have at least the entire sheet covered by a few centimeters. The more you put, the "juicier" the result gets. But that isn't necessarily a good thing, depending on what you like.

Once you're done with the potatoes, do the same thing with some garlic cloves. Five, six, ten, that's up to you. Add salt, not too much, and a bit of nutmeg, like I said, the fresh stuff is best. Nutmeg's quite important for the flavor of it all, you shouldn't leave that one out. Did you know that eating just three whole nutmeg apples will kill you? Now it should look kinda like this:

Now let's get some calories involved - take a cup of cream and just pour it over the whole thing. You should at least take half the cup, you can stretch it a bit with milk, if you're afraid of getting fat, but then you shouldn't be cooking this in the first place so go eat some raw carrots.

Cheese. But not any type of cheese, it should be some good stuff. The absolute Über-cheese for this is this one - Appenzeller from Switzerland.

It's not the cheapest but it's worth it. You can also take regular Leerdammer and similar stuff. But stay the hell away from that shredded crap that comes in a little bag, or "pizza cheese" and the likes, it will spoil the whole meal.

You should turn on the oven at this point, let it heat up. Power all the way, mine goes up to 250° Celsius, and I use top/bottom heat cause the circulating fan is broken, but you can use that as well.

If you have a cutting machine for bread, you can use it to cut the cheese into thin slices, you can make them as thin as you can, or a little thicker if you want to use more cheese, obviously. Otherwise do it with the knife, but it's harder. Don't cut your fingers off yo.

You will need about half the amount that's usually in a package of Appenzeller, but I have no idea how much that is, just make sure it's enough to cover every last bit of potato you can see. Now play some Tetris and puzzle together the slices of cheese:

All the way

Put it in the oven, medium height, not too close to the top if you're using top/bottom heat. You can turn down the oven a little bit, to about 180-200° Celsius.

The whole process will take about 20-30 minutes, you should check on it from time to time.

See where it's going? Not done yet.

That should be good - if you like, you can put it in at the top for a short time to give the cheese layer an extra crunch.

And you're done:

Serve it as you see in the picture, once you're done handing everyone their piece, put the sheet back in the oven (turned off) in between, it will stay creamier that way. Otherwise it cools down and gets a harder crust, which is also nice.

Things that go great with this:

Christmas-Appropriate: Lamb Chops & Brussels Sprouts

Little simpler: Red Cabbage & Mini-Bratwurst

And of course the Awesome "Paprika" Dish I posted in the other thread. It's a must-have for me.

For the sake of completeness - Awesome Paprika Dish recipe:

That Gratin looks pretty good. I used to do a similar thing with layers of potatoes, cabbage and diced Parmaham or Prosciutto I think. May have to try this one though.

Cheers

Yeah Gratin is pretty good but you Germans cut the potatoes too thin. It needs to be a little thicker, just a little more. And yeah, Appenzeller fucking rules.

the cheese and potatoes diet?

looks GREAT though..

that looks great i'm gonna make it next week, yum

  On 12/15/2010 at 8:56 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

Yeah Gratin is pretty good but you Germans cut the potatoes too thin. It needs to be a little thicker, just a little more. And yeah, Appenzeller fucking rules.

Actually I think it's very un-German to cut them thin like that, Germans often put potato in their stereotypical food, they sure do love their potatoes, but mostly it's either whole potatoes as a side order or mashed potato. I don't think anyone else in particular is doing these thin slices to be honest.

When I'm doing a different type of gratin, like spratters, in a bowl-dish type of thing, I cut them bigger, but they need to be either pre-boiled or stay in the oven forever. The thing that the thinness does is that it makes the whole potato-layer creamier and allows the top to form into a thick crust. Depending on what type of potatoes you're using, you sometimes get something close to a potato mash as a result, which sucks up the cream better. For this type of gratin on the baking sheet, I definitely recommend the thin version. It's hard to imagine but it works really well.

  On 12/15/2010 at 9:49 PM, fiznuthian said:

the cheese and potatoes diet?

 

looks GREAT though..

No no I didn't make this now, these are pics from last year. My diet consists of a salad a day pretty much. But I'm almost there, Friday I'm gonna have myself some good old fries.

a bread cutting machine wtf? what did this world come to

  On 12/15/2010 at 9:54 PM, Terpentintollwut said:

The thing that the thinness does is that it makes the whole potato-layer creamier and allows the top to form into a thick crust. Depending on what type of potatoes you're using, you sometimes get something close to a potato mash as a result, which sucks up the cream better. For this type of gratin on the baking sheet, I definitely recommend the thin version. It's hard to imagine but it works really well.

Well defended. I was just worried about the dish being over-creamy. I'm gonna have to try the thinner version I guess.

If you use little cream/milk or fewer potatoes, the result should be pretty dry and crunchy. It's also nice, I've done it before, but might be unsatisfying regarding some people's definition of gratin. I don't mind a mostly crunch-cheese-layer-based dish though.

Mind you though that, when following the steps from my pics and using about the same amount of everything, the result won't have any liquid cream in it at all, it's getting all sucked up by the potatoes, so there will be no cream left on the baking sheet when you take out a piece. Only dark roasted bits of cheese at the side you can scrape off later in the kitchen when the family has gone to bed.

terpin

come and stay in my house, i'll get you drunk every night and you can cook for me

stick some diced bacon in there. gratin with bacon is the shit

I'm going to make this RIGHT NOW

  On 12/15/2010 at 11:57 PM, Iain C said:

terpin

 

come and stay in my house, i'll get you drunk every night and you can cook for me

You're gonna laugh but I've never even been drunk, no kidding. I'm not into drinking at all, I barely drink anything else but tap water, maybe cause my mother owns a wine bar / restaurant. When you can have it any time, you don't want it. Or cause I mistook a glass of vodka for a glass of water when I was little. I wonder what I'd be like when I'm drunk, I should find out at some point. I'm guessing my leo-ascendant is gonna take over and I'll be a complete cunt.

I can't actually cook thaaat many different things, but the things I can do I do well. I can make a great Chili based on my cousin's recipe, can post that too at some point (more Habaneros involved, and chocolate), a real nice Bolognese for pasta, and I can turn the normal burgers from BK and McD into better burgers with various spices and stuff. Ever tried putting pineapple on a Big Mac? It works mysteriously.

  On 12/16/2010 at 12:28 AM, verticalhold said:

I'm going to make this RIGHT NOW

^

I wish I could see his face when he finds out it's gonna explode during the last step

i respect your not drinking, i wish i could do that, but i rely on it as a crutch. i don't eat meat (although i did lapse for a bit earlier in the year), come over anyway.

  On 12/16/2010 at 1:12 AM, Terpentintollwut said:

Ever tried putting pineapple on a Big Mac? It works mysteriously.

try adding some bacon as well. round here you can get that in chip shops as an 'hawaiian burger'

  On 12/16/2010 at 1:17 AM, Iain C said:

i respect your not drinking, i wish i could do that, but i rely on it as a crutch. i don't eat meat (although i did lapse for a bit earlier in the year), come over anyway.

Shame you don't live in Scotland, I've been wanting to go there since forever. Your town looks like not even much of a town, but that doesn't bother me. Are there any interesting things there at all? Environment-wise?

  On 12/16/2010 at 1:31 AM, kaini said:

  On 12/16/2010 at 1:12 AM, Terpentintollwut said:

Ever tried putting pineapple on a Big Mac? It works mysteriously.

 

try adding some bacon as well. round here you can get that in chip shops as an 'hawaiian burger'

I have done that one, too. I also put chopped onions, pickles, various extra-sauces, spices etc on pretty much all of my burgers. They're cold when I eat them but I don't mind, it's a bit of a ritual for me to fuck them up like that.

On principle, you're better off not using smoked bacon and pineapple for the same meal. Same goes for salami and pineapple, and any other smoked meat. My cousin told me the combination of the fruit acid and nitrate develops a substance that actually does cause cancer (although you have to eat lots of it), I've been avoiding that combination since, although it's admittedly tasty.

  On 12/16/2010 at 3:02 AM, Terpentintollwut said:

  On 12/16/2010 at 1:17 AM, Iain C said:

i respect your not drinking, i wish i could do that, but i rely on it as a crutch. i don't eat meat (although i did lapse for a bit earlier in the year), come over anyway.

 

Shame you don't live in Scotland, I've been wanting to go there since forever. Your town looks like not even much of a town, but that doesn't bother me. Are there any interesting things there at all? Environment-wise?

ignore the location in my profile, i live in London and have done for close to 5 years now. it's great.

  On 12/16/2010 at 6:46 AM, xxx said:

A German who has never had the "animal thirst"? That's about all I did when I went to Germany lol. Your statement about "not any kind of cheese" really made me miss the breads and cheeses of Germany--even though the cheese you mentioned was Swiss. Whenever my KLM flight to Berlin was almost done, a German stewardess was offering sandwiches. She asked "hanchen oder kase?" I had no idea what hanchen meant but kase sounded like queso so I went with it. I wish I knew what cheese it was. I never ate a cheese sandwich that wholly satisfying. I soon got to know hanchen really really well at the dohner imbiss. At the local grocery, they had a section called "Brot Der Woche" and I tried the new loaves every week. The beer, bread and cheese--it really was everything it was cracked up to be.

Yeah we do have some nice bread in Germany. For me it's always been normal to have good bread, my whole childhood I've been feeding off Leberwurstbrot pretty much every day. Some say the hormones in that made me grow to 6.5. To be honest, the thought of only having access to that

all of the time makes me a little sick. The fact that you got impressed by a cheese sandwich on an AIRPLANE really says something. But I admit I have eaten sandwiches on airplanes that were quite good, too, maybe just because I had such low expectations. There's a bakery in my town, they make a type of bread that has whole hazelnuts in it, looks like this on the outside

and like this when you cut it, but with thicker crust

It's great, with cheese or Hungarian salami.

Oh, and about the Döner Kebab, there's a little Döner "Imbiss" in my city that practically owns the market, Yede Gör:

It's always as crowded as on the picture, even at 4 a.m. you have to wait in line, but only for a minute or so. Remember the soup nazi from Seinfeld? These guys are like that, if you don't order right away they kick you out. I have counted and they take 12 seconds (!) from taking your order to handing it to you.

  On 12/16/2010 at 9:03 AM, Iain C said:

ignore the location in my profile, i live in London and have done for close to 5 years now. it's great.

London huh, that's more like it - if you're gonna keep up the offer I might really come over some day

  On 12/16/2010 at 1:39 PM, Terpentintollwut said:

Germans really own the word "Super". They use it so much and it never sounds so better than in german.

Super-Soup-Supper

Guys, I am gonna end my diet one day early - I just called McD (yeah I did) and they are running out of Curly Fries until tomorrow evening, they said they'll re-order but I won't take the risk, so I'll go there later today. It was such a stupid ass idea to go on a diet when they just introduced my favorite fast food as a temporary product, but it had to be done.

I bet it's gonna be weird though, after three+ weeks of eating either a salad, a tangerine or nothing at all the whole day... I'm excited. My stomach must have shrinked quite a bit, guess I won't be ordering four burgers today.

Christmas Dinner was canceled, so we had this instead:

Nah bullshit we did, but it was canceled, snowed in and sick, no one was up for cooking, I ate crisps all night. But we're gonna have it today.

I managed to get those curly fries one final time before they got taken out of the menu, close one but at least I didn't have to yell.

3 boxes of bromazepam.

lots of pastis.

did you try using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovage (Liebstöckel) in the gratin? I dont know how it works with garlic, but tastes great with everything else in it.

Also try adding some butter

So, I finally got to try this german gratin. I've tried it with freshly grated Appenzeler (instead of sliced), but I think I put too much cream, it hasn't reduced well.

Pretty good, should have put more salt though.

I made this with a roasted chicken with bacon on top and herbs, which was a total success.

And never forget: