Boulangère Potatoes

boulangerepotatoes Boulangère Potatoes makes for an amazing casserole type of dish that combines thinly sliced Yukon Gold potatoes, sautéed sliced onions, garlic and butter. They are then covered in a flavourful stock and baked in the oven to achieve a soft buttery potato inside, with a bit of crunch on the outside.

6 large Yukon gold potatoes, sliced
1½ large Spanish onions or 3 small ones, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
5 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
1½ cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup Gruyère cheese, shredded
sea salt
black pepper, freshly ground

Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C/160°C fan, Gas Mark 4). Butter an 11" oval baking dish and start assembling the casserole.

Slice up the onions, add 2 Tbsp. of butter to the skillet and sauté them for 5 minutes.

Then add the garlic with one more Tbsp. of butter and sauté for another 5 minutes.

In the meantime, peel your potatoes and cut them thin (I used my food processor to cut up ⅔ of my potatoes, which literally took 15 seconds. I then thinly sliced ⅓ of potatoes to have nice round slices for the top layer.

Add ⅓ of your potatoes for a single layer; then add ½ the onions, ⅓ of your rosemary, salt, and pepper (season every layer). Repeat with another layer.

Arrange the top layer of potatoes in a way that the rounds overlap slightly on each other.

Pour over the stock so it submerges almost all of the potatoes. However, the top layer stays slightly elevated above the stock (so that it will get crispy). Add more rosemary, salt and pepper.

Add little pieces of butter (⅓" squares) on the potatoes and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil (about 2 Tbsp. of butter)

Cover with foil and bake for one hour.

Take the foil off, raise the oven temperature to 425°F (220°C/200°C fan, Gas Mark 7) and bake for another half hour.

In the meantime, shred ½ cup of Gruyère Cheese and chop the parsley.

Remove the potatoes from the oven, sprinkle with cheese and return to the oven for 5 minutes, until the cheese has melted.

Serve with chopped parsley and enjoy.

Makes 8 servings.

Cook's Notes:

Do not wash your potatoes, you don't want to rinse off the starch.
Using a food processor to slice the potatoes will save you a lot of time. However, the slices may not come all even. This doesn’t matter for the first two layers but you may want to have even slices of potatoes for the top layer to make a beautiful arrangement of slices slightly overlapping on each other. To do so, you may use a food processor for ⅔ of your then use a knife to slice the remaining potatoes for the top layer. You can also use a mandoline to thinly slice your potatoes instead of food processor or knife.
Instead of vegetable or chicken stock, you can use chicken concentrate or bouillon dissolved in water for more flavour.