The gratin dauphinois (the real thing!)
It's a great classic and yet hardly anyone does it according to tradition!
So let's say it loud and clear! Originally, gratin dauphinois was made with floury potatoes, single cream, salt, pepper and butter. And we rub the dish (on the ground) with a clove of garlic without putting any in the dish. At the end of cooking, the potatoes have completely "pumped" the cream and are soft as can be!
The recipe has evolved – which is normal, remember that a recipe cannot be fixed for eternity – and today we often mix the cream with milk.
But the variants that incorporate eggs beaten in milk and/or cheese are denatured versions, most often enriched by snobbery. Eggs in particular distort the texture of the gratin, which has to cook for a long time and therefore takes on a lumpy appearance, which has the worst effect. As for the cheese, it dominates the delicate nutty flavor of the cream.
Because, as is often the case when a recipe from the countryside arrives in the city, we find it too simple and we deck it out with superfluous ingredients that take away all delicacy from a seemingly simple dish that is intelligently constructed to bring out the delicacy of the local products.
This is also the reason why putting garlic in the dish is a pity. Using only a single pod to rub the earthenware dish, which will thus slowly diffuse its fragrance during the long cooking, gives a much more subtle result than sprinkling it all over the layers of potatoes. In the kitchen as elsewhere, too much is often the enemy of good!
The secret of success: do not wash the potatoes once they are cut into slices, but only wipe them with a (clean) cloth so that they retain their starch, which will ensure the binding of the gratin.
