scalloped potatoes | Funny about Money

How the Crockpot Scalloped Potatoes Worked Out

December 25, 2009December 25, 2009 by funny

So there was that scheme to cook up a mess of scalloped potatoes in the crockpot, so as to simplify my contribution to the Christmas Eve potluck down at the Cult Headquarters. Alerted by Frugal Scholar to the likelihood that milk and cheese would curdle during the long cook, I sent out intelligence feelers across the Web. One, count her, (1), authoritative writer offered a true scalloped potato recipe, complete with white sauce and cheese, and claimed it worked well. Everyone else said if you put dairy in a crockpot you’ll end up with curds and whey.

Well, I liked Stephanie O’Dea’s basic idea, which she billed as au gratin rather than scalloped and to which she added walnuts and sage. I happen to have a sage plant that’s struggling to survive the winter frosts and a bucket of Costco walnuts in the freezer. But given the wackiness of the Christmas schedule, I really didn’t want to take a chance on ruining several pounds of potatoes and being left at the last minute with nothing to take to the chivaree.

So… I decided to substitute a velouté sauce—in effect, a white sauce made with chicken stock instead of milk—and then add the gruyère topping at the last minute. This worked pretty well. Here’s how it fell out:

To make enough to choke a horse:

• several pounds of potatoes, peeled
• about four handfuls of walnuts
• four to six fresh sage leaves, minced or finely chopped
• one large yellow onion
• butter in abundance
• olive oil
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 2 cups flavorful chicken stock
• salt and pepper
• a cup or more of grated gruyère (or other) cheese

I happened to have a box of College Inn’s “White Wine and Herbs Culinary Broth,” according to the ingredients panel your basic chicken stock with wine added. It tastes more like they used sherry—their “wine” must be cheap and sweet—but it’s pretty good. But you could use just about any broth, fresh or canned, wine-spiked or not.

Slice the potatoes and onions fairly thin—I used a mandoline for both, creating potato slices about 1/8 inch thick, but if you used a knife, about 1/4 inch would be fine.

Skim a frying pan with olive oil and sauté the onions until they’re just starting to carmelize. In a small frying pan or wide stockpot, melt some butter and toast the walnuts. When the onions are beginning to brown, add the sage and stir to mix well.

Make the sauce velouté: melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Add a like amount of flour. Stir over medium heat until the butter foams, but do not allow to brown. Add the chicken stock and heat over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens.

Generously butter the crockpot’s ceramic pot. Starting with potatoes, layer in the ingredients this order: potatoes on the bottom, dabs of butter, another layer of potatoes, layer of onion/sage, half the toasted walnuts, half the sauce; layer of potatoes, dabs of butter, layer of potatoes, remaining walnuts, layer of onion/sage, remaining potatoes, remaining sauce.

Cook on “low” about 5 or 6 hours.

A half-hour before serving, remove the cover, sprinkle the gruyère over the top, and replace the cover. Allow to cook until the cheese melts.

Ours cooked about six hours. I think that may have been a bit too long for Idahos, because the result, while extremely tasty, was somewhat mushy. Next time, I’d use boiling potatoes (red or white), which should hold their shape a bit better. Stephanie’s recipe calls for cooking the dish on “high” for just three hours; this also might solve the overcooking issue.

I’m fairly certain that you could get away with pouring a cup or so of heavy cream over the top at the time you put in the cheese—about a half-hour before serving. Even though the potatoes are very hot by then, I very much doubt the cream would fall apart in a half-hour. But since I had to sing at the 8:30 service as well as the midnight eucharist, SDXB would be bringing the potful of potatoes to the intermission potluck; setting him to experimenting with cream minutes before he had to haul the stuff to the car…well, that would’ve been asking for trouble.

Although it wasn’t a pretty dish, it really tasted very good, and the diners left little to bring home.

Christmas Recipe: Crockpot scalloped potatoes, hold the canned soup

December 27, 2009December 17, 2009 by funny

On Christmas Eve the choir performs twice, once at the 8:30 p.m. service and then again at the 11:00 service, a full-throttle bells-and-smells Eucharist. In between the two events we entertain ourselves with a potluck dinner.

Since M’hijito and I are entertaining 15 people at my house on Christmas Day and since SDXB will be spending Christmas Eve here, I cast about for something to take to the potluck that wouldn’t require much work. The crockpot is the likeliest candidate for a work-saving tool here, but I’m not fond of recipes that entail dumping canned mushroom soup (icky!) over chicken and cooking it to death. So I think I’m going to adapt and combine a couple of recipes to create a fresh variation on scalloped potatoes for the crockpot.

See the update of this recipe here.

Check this out:

2 pounds potatoes, sliced
1 large yellow onion, julienned
butter
olive oil
about 2 cups flavorful white sauce (see below)
1 cup shredded gruyère cheese
paprika or New Mexico red pepper flakes (mild)
finely chopped parsley
salt and pepper

To julienne the onion, peel it and slice it vertically, then slice again vertically, at a 90-degree angle to the original slices. Skim a frying pan with olive oil. Carmelize the onions by sautéeing them gently until they’re lovely and brown. Season mildly with salt and pepper to taste.

Grease the inside of the crockpot container generously with butter or olive oil.

Layer the sliced potatoes and the carmelized onions into the pot. Spread the white sauce evenly over the top. Dot generously with butter, then add more pepper and, if desired, salt. Cover the pot and cook the potatoes on low for seven or eight hours or on high for three to four hours. About a half-hour before serving, remove the lid and sprinkle with cheese and a little paprika for color. Replace the lid and allow the potatoes to continue cooking until the cheese is melted in. Finally, sprinkle minced fresh parsley over the top.

To make 2 cups white sauce:
See the comments for a discussion of the sauce!

4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons white flour
2 cups milk, or combination of milk and good chicken or beef stock
dollop of sherry
nutmeg
salt and pepper
paprika (optional)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add flour and stir well to combine. Cook gently over medium-low heat until the butter and flour foam up. Don’t allow the flour to brown.

Add the stock and stir over medium-high heat until them sauce is hot and thickened. Add nutmeg to taste: 1/8 to 1/4 tsp. Add a couple tablespoons of dry sherry. Add salt and pepper to taste. A little paprika will give the sauce some extra zing.

Mwa ha ha! For the last potluck, someone got to the sign-up sheet before me and claimed the very dish I planned to bring. Last night, though, I managed to grab the sheet first. While this will not be as staggeringly impressive as Cheryl and Doug’s traditional home-smoked salmon, it should at least be reasonably tasty.

Image: Vicente Gil, Adoração dos Magos. Public Domain. Wikipedia Commons.

Cheap Eats: Grilled pork tenderloin

December 7, 2011February 25, 2009 by funny

During the late, great stockpiling expedition, I picked up one of Costco’s vast packages of pork tenderloin: two connected freezer-wrapped packets that, when opened, each disgorge two large tenderloins, for a total of enough food to last one old lady about three weeks. I also bought enough potatoes to feed the population of Ireland for a week or two.

With a good two or three months’ worth of meat in the freezer, it seemed like a good opportunity to invite friends to dinner. I decided to scallop a couple handfuls of the potatoes and to marinate and then roast the two of the four tenderloins on the grill. Leftovers could go into the freezer. La Maya and La Bethulia brought over an incredible salad, and I unearthed some of the brussels sprouts I bought fresh at Thanksgiving, blanched, and froze. It worked pretty well. Check this out:

Grilled Pork Tenderloins

You need:

-1 or 2 pork tenderloins
-lemon juice or wine vinegar (about 1/2 c for one tenderloin)
-olive oil (about the same amount as juice or vinegar)
-salt & pepper to taste
-fennel seeds
-garlic (one clove per loin)
-fresh rosemary or sage sprigs (optional)

Mix olive oil and lemon juice or vinegar, about 50-50. I used a cup of each for two tenderloins; this was more than needed. It can be refrigerated or frozen and used to marinate a future portion of chicken, beef, venison, or more pork. Add some salt and pepper to the marinade, to taste.

Slice the garlic into slivers. With a sharp knife, poke holes into the meat and stuff them with garlic slivers.Take about a tablespoon of fennel seeds and spin them in a blender or, if you have one, a coffee grinder reserved for grinding spices. Rub the ground fennel into the meat.

Place the meat in an enameled or glass dish and pour the marinade over it. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Turn the meat over once during the marinating process.

Start a charcoal fire or turn on a propane grill. If you have some hardwood chips, soak these in water for at least 20 minutes before starting the meat.

Push the charcoal to the outside edges of the grill, so you will have a place to set the meat that is not directly over the fire. Toss on the hardwood chips, and then put several springs of rosemary, sage, or both onto the fire. Set the grates in place, and then place the meat on the grate so that it’s not directly over the hot coals. You actually want the meat to roast rather than barbecue—olive oil dripping on burning coals will cause a flare-up, which you’d like to avoid. Close the lid.

Allow the meat to cook about 30 or 40 minutes. Turn it once during the cooking process. My friends ran a little late, and so these tenderloins cooked about 45 or 50 minutes—they came out just fine.

Slice the meat across the grain, into medallions. Serve with rice, pasta, or potatoes, a nice green veggie, and some salad. Toooo excellent!

Scalloped potatoes

I haven’t scalloped a potato since I was a young thing: it’s a very old-fashioned dish. La Bethulia was thrilled: “No one makes these anymore,” she exclaimed—and she loves them. They did come out pretty tasty.

You need:

-four to six potatoes, depending on the number of diners and your mood
-about two cups milk
-a lot of butter
-salt and pepper
-some fresh parsley, chopped (optional, I think)
-a handful or two of shredded Parmesan cheese

Wash the potatoes; slice them about 1/8 inch thick. (I used a mandoline, a very handy little gadget—you also could haul out the food processor, if you have one. A sharp knife, however, will do the trick). Drop them into a bowl of icy water as you’re working.

Butter a flat baking dish well. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Dry the potato slices on a clean dishrag or paper towels. Lay down a layer of slices in the pan; dot these with butter, season with salt & pepper, and sprinkle a little parsley over them. Repeat until you run out of potatoes. Dot the top layer with still more butter, and pour in enough milk to just cover the potatoes. Then sprinkle a nice layer of Parmesan cheese over the top.

Place this lash-up in the oven and allow to bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked to your liking. The result is comfort food at its best.

Easy Brussels Sprouts

You need:
-frozen Brussels sprouts
-butter
-tarragon
-nutmeg

Melt some butter in a frying pan—more than enough to just cover the bottom of the pan. You’re going to braise these sprouts, which will cause them to take up some of the butter into their little sprout bodies. Provide enough for the purpose.

Place the sprouts into the pan with the melted butter. Roll them around to coat them well. Sprinkle on some dried tarragon and a little nutmeg. Turn the heat fairly low and cover the pan tightly.

Depending on how large the sprouts are, it takes about eight to fifteen minutes to cook. Stir occasionally, to be sure they don’t scorch on one side.

La Maya made the salad. I don’t know how she made it. All I know is she showed up with a dressing made of 18-year-old balsamic vinegar, which was pretty amazing.

🙂