Mushroom and potato gratin: Using up your garden produce.

Mushroom and potato gratin.

My husband Hive account@costopher is seeing some great results from the greenhouse right now and keeps popping a bowl of fresh produce on the kitchen worktop, saying “Look at the ----! Aren’t they cool?!” Yes, they are indeed. It does however, lay down something of a challenge in what to do with these lovely veggies. If you keep getting the same veg to use every day, you can soon get sick of them, and run out of ideas on how to do something different with them.

The other day was disappointingly cold grey and windy for the end of July. This wasn’t fun if you wanted to be outside, but it did give me the opportunity to make a dish that, while delicious, is more of a autumn/ winter staple. Gratin. A baked dish of veg, oozy cream and cheese is a bit hot and rather indulgent for a proper summer’s day when the temperature’s 23°C plus. When it’s only 16°C and you’ve had to put on a second layer over your t shirt, it really hits the spot.

This makes enough for 4 people as a side, or 2-3 hungry people as a main.

2 medium sized onions, finely sliced
About 500g (17.5 oz) potatoes - we had a mix of about 6 from the garden, Yukon Gold and Pink Fir Apple (giggles). Cut these into slices the thickness of a £1 coin (3mm, I have no idea what the equivalent coin would be in other countries ). Ideally use a mandoline, and be careful of your fingers!

About 300g (10.5oz) mushrooms - I used a mix of chestnut and portobello. Cut these into thick slices
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Nutmeg, grated, to your own taste
300ml (10 fl. oz)double (heavy) cream
100g (3.5 oz) Parmesan, grated
Oil for frying
Butter for frying the mushrooms.
Seasoning.

If you can get your hands on truffle pesto, that would be ideal. I think you can get it here in the US.

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/ 390°F /Gas Mark 4
Fry the onions in a little oil.
When going translucent, season.
Remove from pan and lay in a greased ovenproof dish.
Fry the mushrooms in the butter.

A really good tip (that I only heard a couple of years ago) for making sure that your mushrooms don’t go “slimy”, it to treat the frying mushrooms a bit like you would chunks of meat that you were browning in a pan. Don’t overcrowd the pan. Give the mushrooms room. Don’t keep stirring. Let one side brown, then gently turn. Knocking the mushrooms about causes them to release their moisture; they won’t go golden brown round the edge, and they will go “slimy”. Do it in batches if your frying pan isn’t very big.

Add chopped garlic towards the end. You don’t want the garlic to go brown.
Season the mushrooms and garlic.
Spoon the mushrooms and garlic into the oven dish.
Mandoline the potatoes.
Reserve a third of the slices for the top.
Put the other 2 thirds into the oven dish.
Grate a little nutmeg, and grind a little more black pepper over the mixture.

Mix the onions and mushrooms together.
Lay the remaining third of the potato slices on top of the dish.
Dollop a few teaspoons of truffle pesto (if you can get your hands on it) around the corners.

Grate cheese over the potatoes.

Pour cream over the whole dish.
Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Remove from the oven and serve with whatever you fancy; big green salad/ ratatouille/ steamed green beans...

(I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished dish because we were both really hungry by this point! Sorry, but rest assured, it was tasty.)

Hope you enjoy!