Oh, a marvelous potato gratin! What could be better, more satisfying, more heart-warming?  It’s a side dish, yes, but add a few strips of crisped ham and serve it with a salad, and you’ve got an amazing plat du jour on your hands.

Beloved Gratin

As is, potato gratin is a staple on the French table, referred to simply as “gratin”.  It’s a beloved dish for the French, a simple go-to for the home cook and a dish the restaurant chef loves to serve because it attracts like a flower does a bee.  Seriously – Gratin on the menu?  The lines begin to form.

Gratin Dauphinois

Potato gratin  is often referred to as Gratin Dauphinois, because it is thought to have originated in the 16^th century in the southeastern French alps, in the region known as the Dauphiné.   Then, the dish was made with ingredients at hand: potatoes, fresh milk, garlic.   It is doubtful whether or not salt and pepper were added, for those were rare ingredients, and nutmeg had probably not even been heard of.  

Creative Urge

Today every cook has her or his own recipe for gratin Dauphinois, though purists agree with me: the best gratin Dauphinois is the simplest.  Potatoes, a hint of garlic, milk and cream.  If you want to get creative, though, do.  Substitute one-third the quantity of potatoes with: Jerusalem artichoke, celery root, even fennel sliced thin.  But don’t add cheese – that muddles the recipe and the flavor, making it something else. 

The Best Plat du Jour

So what is the best plat du jour for potato gratin?  Any one, but I love to serve it alongside butter-drizzled seared steak, a roast chicken or duck, sauteed pork loin, a grilled leg of lamb.  Something pure and simple, something that tastes of itself.  For despite the humble ingrediens in a potato gratin, you may find it steals the show!