Dauphinoise Drama

[SpacegirlRevisited]

Why oh why does my dauphinoise curdle everytime?

I dream of tender potato with a creamy unctuous sauce but I have flaccid looking slivers in grainy watery liquid.Bleurgh.

Todays recipe was simply potatoes, garlic, onion, milk but I've tried cream with the same result.

Please tell me where I am getting it wrong.

Use cream. Also I part cook my spuds. I sometimes fully cook them and stick I. Over with cream, cheese, garlic and nutmeg for a quick version.

Slice pots
Poach in batches in half milk half cream and garlic
Arrange in layers with gruyere cheese between each layer
Add in a bit of the poaching liquid
Bake

I see now that my first mistake is not to par boil the potato first. I've always assembled everything raw.

I've only just learnt how to make this!! It's fab and so easy once you get the hang of it.

I once had a tip from a venerable cook that one should not soak the potatoes before parboiling as one might do normally, as for this recipe the starch is needed to bind the creamy sauce and stop it splitting.

I also do a sort of cheat's version and it's immeasurably improved my Dauphinois: boil sliced potatoes until cooked or nearly so, layer the potato in ramekins with grated cheese, pour in half and half double cream and milk to nearly the top of the ramekin (pour it down the sides as it were and it finds its own level) - finish with a few nice-shaped slices topped with a little grated cheese and bake for 30 mins or so till golden and bubbling.

Yes I make that cheats version too just not in ramekins. Will try ramekins next. Yummy.

Well, I make a much simpler version than anyone else on this thread. I cut raw potatoes into thin slices, clean, leave to soak in water overnight (for no other reason than I like to get things ready the night before), then next day, drain the water, arrange the potatoes a bit, pour double cream over, cook in a low oven (about 120) for about three hours and they are perfect.

I may try some of the other versions on this thread now.

I cooked the Ultimate potato dauphinoise recipe from the Good Food website this week and it was lovely. It used a mixture of milk and double cream and didn't curdle at all. I think single cream has a slight tendency to split more than double. No parboiling either which was a bonus. You just slice the potatoes and pour over the warm milk/cream mixture. There were a few other ingredients too- thyme, garlic and shallots. Delicious.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3253/ultimate-gratin-dauphinois

Thank you so much for all of the advice.

I'm definitely going to try the Good Food version along with the other methods here.

Wonder if I could do it in a slow cooker.

Fry your onions first to reduce the acid.

I boil the sliced potatoes in milk & cream until they're just softened. Then add fried (softened not browned) onions to the mix and layer it all in a dish. Stick it in the oven at 160c for at least 1.5hrs, more if I can.

Works every time.