This is a twist on a classic tartiflette recipe with the option to 'pimp' with Garlic or Nduja Knots
The cheese. The Potato. Proper carb loading...!
Best eaten atop a mountain in the alps, with a glass or 6 of Vin Chaud, sitting outside one of those ramshackled huts next to a ski run, dressed up in your skiing gear, hobbling about in your ski boots, trying not to slip over. Great fun! The views. The cheese. The wine.
Here's my little twist on a classic tartiflette recipe- I like to add fennel, i seem to use it a lot, that aniseed flavour cutting through a bit of the cheese fat, kinda makes it healthy right?
You can leave out the lardons for a veggie version.
Unctuous stacks of potato
Be patient when stacking
Add the cream
Fill to just below the top as will bubble over.
The Cheese Melts
Bacon. Cheese. Cream. Potato.
Ready for Cooking
i've added a few sliced of butter in the potatoes...
If you want carbs and cheese, then this is the one. Food that clings to your ribs!
Make it healthy by serving it with a token salad.
A twist on a classic Tartiflette recipe. I add fennel and you can pimp it with Nduja or Garlic knots.
Author:
George Orange
Ingredients
800g Potatoes such as regal or standard essential type medium waxiness- or use charlotte for a bit more bite. Sliced skin on thinly with a mandolin to approx. 3mm thick
3 bulbs of fennel thinly sliced to 1 or 2mm
2 onions, cut in half and sliced into half round slices
Start by heating a skillet pan on your hob and add the olive oil.
Fry the lardons until crisp. I sometimes lower the heat to help let the fats render if they are fatty lardons.
Once crisp, fish out the lardons into a bowl, reserving the fat in the pan
Bring the bacon fat pan back up to a medium heat and pop in the onion slices- gently cooking them though until they start to caramelise. Once they are starting to brown, pop in the chopped garlic. Gently cooking that through.
Strip one of the springs of thyme and mix that through the unctuous onions.
Add the lardons and any oil in the bowl back into the skillet. Add a good slug of white wine and mix through Keep the bowl for later.
Season the mix with a good grind of pepper taste the mix for the salt level from the bacon and season with a pinch of salt if necessary (use smoked salt if you have it)
Take off the heat and let cool
Now slice the potatoes- leaving the skins on and pile them up in order… ie so they resemble the original potato before you sliced it up… if that makes any sense!
Top the fennel bulbs removing the woody stalks and outer layer. Slice in half lengthways and make 2 diagonal cuts to remove the centre white stalk bit.
Then thinly slice the fennel halves length ways with the mandolin.
Remove the now cooled onion and bacon mix from the pan into the bowl you had earlier.
Now it’s time to chillout and assemble. Tartiflette… Assemble!!
Grab one of the stacks of potatoes. Take the top slice off and place it on the table. Pop a slice of fennel on that slice and then lay the next slice of potato on top, then add a couple of slices of the cooled onions on top (reserving the bacon for later), then another slice of potato, fennel, potato, onion, potato, fennel, potato, onion potato… you get the idea?
Once you have completed one potato pick it up and stick it sideways in the skillet,
Continue as above and form a ring of potaoey fennely oniony goodness around the skillet
Once you have a full ring, you should have some spare potato, fennel and onion mix
Lay those in the middle hollow ring, layer by layer as above. Sprinkling a bit of the lardons into the mix.
Once complete… grab the bits’o’bacon and any other spare bits and tuck those into the potato slices to fill it out
Unwrap the cheese and plonk that into the centre hole. (you can cut the top off with a hot knife if you don’t like the rind) drizzle a little olive oil on the top and arrange the other 2 springs of thyme on the top in an artistic way…
Open the double cream and pour that over the neatly arranged potato mix until just below the rim.
Depending on you cooking method- oven or bbq. Pop on a baking tray as it will no doubt bubble over…
Cover with foil and insert into you cooking device- 180c oven, similar indirect bbq.
Take the foil off after 30 mins
It’ll be around 45 mins for the potato to cook. Occasionally probe with a knife or skewer to test the doneness of the pots.
Remove from your cooking device and let cool just slightly as it’ll be lava hot.
Serve with a crisp salad with a French dressing, some crusty bread, or as a side to boeuf bourguignonne.
Recipe Note
Prep ahead and bake off when your guests arrive.
Keep the leftovers and scoop out into balls and coat them in flour, egg, breadcrumbs and deep fry....
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