Potatisgrateng

Yesterday I celebrated the 84th birthday of my mother in law Barbara Edmonds, at a family barbeque. There were 15 present, 6 of whom were vegetarian.   I took along the veggie burgers and sausages.  I tend to prefer Linda McCartney to Quorn.  I also grilled some haloumi cheese which is great fantastic.

The day before I made 'Corn on the cob curry' which I thought would go really well with the burgers.  The recipe is from Prashad vegetarian Indian Cooking and I shall be sharing the recipe at a later date.  I made some coriander and coconut chutney, a recipe given to me by the wonderful Althea Pecus in San Diego.  I designed a couple of salads loosely based on ones I had eaten at Herman's Vegetarian Restaurant in Stockholm.

The star dish though had to be my vresion of Potatisgrateng.  I first had this dish at my friend Susanne Ohman’s house in the North of Sweden.  I asked for the recipe only to be told she got it out of the freezer.  I decided to recreate it and came up with this.  Sometime later a Norwegian chef who had eaten my version  said 'a touch more garlic and salt and I had nailed it'  She sent me the recipe and I was pleased to find my version wasn’t too far off.  This dish always reminds me of happy times in the North of Sweden.

Potatisgrateng

Serves 8

Ingredients 

1½ kg potatoes,  Maris Piper or similar

500ml double cream

 250ml milk

250ml Natural yoghurt

1tbs Dijon mustard

3 cloves crushed garlic

4 tbs chopped fresh parsley

6 spring onions finely sliced

2tsp caraway seeds

2tsp Nigella seeds

salt and ground pepper

Knob of butter

200g of grated cheese Vasterbotten is best but cheddar works almost as well

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4

Peel potatoes and cut them into thin slices 3-5mm thick.

Grease a large casserole dish with the butter and add a layer of potato slices. Season well with salt and pepper and a sprinkling of spring onion, parsley, caraway and nigella seeds.  Continue to layer in this order.  Save 1 tbs of parsley for garnish.

Mix cream, milk, yoghurt, mustard and garlic.

Pour the cream mixture over the potatoes and place the dish in the oven at 180 ° C for approx. 1 hour 15 minutes. Sprinkle with the cheese after 45 minutes.

If the potatoes start to brown too much cover with foil.  Make sure the potatoes are tender, and sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.