Recipes

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF.
2. Wash the potatoes and slice as thinly as possible – It’s well worth using a mandolin here, or the slicer on a box grater, because it’s important to try and make the slices the same thickness. If the slices are unequal they’ll cook at different speeds and you’ll end up with bits of undercooked potato. There’s also no need to peel them before slicing them.
3. Put the sliced potatoes into a bowl of cold water as you go to remove excess starch.
4. Mix the cream and dairy drink in a jug – while I’ve given a 2:1 cream to dairy drink ratio, you can adjust to half and half if you prefer a lighter version.
5. Either crush the garlic into the creamy mixture directly and then add the salt, or finely chop and puree the garlic with the salt and then add it. Add the rosemary and set aside.
6. Rinse the potatoes under cold water in a colander and drain. It’s genuinely worth doing this, because otherwise the starch can simply burst in the cream while cooking and give the dish a rather claggy, floury texture.
7. Take a shallow oven dish and pour a little cream mixture around the bottom to give a thin coating.
8. Add an even layer of potatoes roughly 1cm thick to the bottom of the dish. There’s no need to be too fussy about this, especially if you’ve used the mandolin and got really thin slices. The main thing is to avoid big air pockets.
9. Stir the cream mixture and pour a quarter or so evenly over the potatoes. If the garlic is gathering the in the bottom of the jug, fish some out with a spoon and sprinkle it over the potatoes as well.
10. Continue adding layers of potato and dousing with cream until you’ve run out of potato.
11. Giving the cream another good stir, pour the remainder over the last layer of potatoes and spread out any bits of rosemary or garlic.
12. Sprinkle over 75g of the grated cheese, cover the dish in foil (but don’t let the foil touch the top of the cheese) and place in the oven for 1 1/2 hours.
13. At the end of this time, remove the foil, add the remaining grated cheese and put back in the oven. Cook for another 35-40 mins until the cheese is nicely browned all over and the potato is tender if you insert a skewer.

The finished product should not be completely swimming in cream, but should form more of a nicely layered and delicately scented potato cake, so don’t worry if it’s not sloshing in fluid at the end of cooking.

This dish makes a great accompaniment to festive ham or roast beef, and any leftovers are great for eating the next day in an omelette!

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