During my week of seasonal eating one of my
favourite French recipes managed to squeeze its way onto the line-up, although
I did stick to my UK-only rule for its ingredients. Pommes Boulangère is a classic French dish,
firmly falling into the category of home-cooking (and literally translating to
mean potatoes in the style of the baker's wife), and in little need of
adaptation. However, I've got a hungry boy to feed so sliced potatoes, onions
and stock just doesn't cut it in my house. I added some flecks of bacon, a
generous helping of Somerset Brie, and some super fresh, local runner beans on
the side...
Ingredients (to serve 2 as a generous main dish or 4 as a side dish):
500g potatoes - we finally harvested some potatoes from the garden, which tasted delicious!
1 onion
200-300ml hot stock
20g melted butter
2-4 rashers of good quality smoked Bacon
1 clove of garlic
Salt & pepper
A small ripe Brie
Generous handful of fresh runner beans
What to do:
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees
C.
2. Butter a large shallow
ovenproof dish.
3. Fry the bacon, cut into
lardon-style chunks, with thinly sliced garlic until golden brown.
4. Peel the potatoes thinly and
slice them very thinly using a mandolin slicer or attachment in a food
processor. Do not rinse the potatoes and if they get wet, pat dry with kitchen
paper.
5. Slice the onion thinly.
6. Arrange a first layer of
potato in the bottom of the dish, overlapping some of the slices, and
season.
7. Add a layer of sliced onion
followed by the sliced garlic and bacon. Repeat the layers ending with a potato
layer.
8. Meanwhile, melt the butter in
a pan.
9. Pour over the hot stock up to
the top layer of potatoes. Brush the top of the potatoes with the melted butter.
10. Place the dish at the top of
the preheated oven for one hour or so, until tender and starting to get crisp
and golden on top. Add slices of Brie and put back in the oven until melted and
bubbling.
11. Serve with sliced, steamed
runner beans - al dente is best to add a crunch to the smooth, cheesy
sauce of the potato dish.
Enjoy! :-)
P.s. You might also like these
summer dishes using seasonal veg...
