Are you a cook?

[Cristobal]

I've been playing with the gratin dauphinois recipe lately.

Potatoes, milk, garlic, butter, nutmeg, cheese (which is not in the original recipe, I add it, mostly from my region, therefore Comté). Since I haven't got a mandolin to slice the potatoes, I use my Chinese chef cleaver to obtain 1 to 2mm thick potato slices.

https://youtu.be/YvpYyfRkxSI
You can activate the translated subtitles.

[JayM]

Now, that is just weird! Less than two hours ago I suddenly began craving the American version of that dish, potatoes au gratin (or "potatoes augh! Rotten!" as my mother called them) and come back to my computer after feeding dinner to my animals to find you've posted about almost the very same thing!

In my mental food fantasy I was thinking of making a Béchamel sauce, adding grated or diced white cheese of some sort, thinly-sliced peeled potatoes, small pieces of ham, and some asparagus (which I've actually seen in supermarkets on occasion here in the Philippines) to make a one-dish meal of it. To be done right they should be baked in an oven rather than done on the stove top though, and I don't have even a toaster oven to lightly brown the top, but even a stove top version would be better than none at all. (If I had a propane torch I could brown the top that way, but I don't have.)

[Cristobal]

Great minds!

Indeed, I do believe it is better if the potatoes are not precooked but rather cooked in the gratin dish (plat à gratin) in the oven. This way, garlic and cheese (and whatever you add) can infuse the potatoes during the process. IMHO, the secret is to have really thin slices of potatoes.

[malspa]

I don't think of myself as being much of a cook, but in my younger days I worked as a cook for several years, at a few different restaurants, and I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve. These days I like to keep things simple, and I don't like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. But I live alone and I prepare my own meals.

I don't eat meat very often, and I try to stay away from processed foods. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, lots of chopping stuff up on the cutting board. I cook with garlic and onions a lot, and I've always got to have olive oil on hand. Got a nice little rice cooker that I use quite often. Avocados, tomatoes, green chiles (hey, I live in New Mexico, I'm addicted to green chiles, sue me!), those are some things always found here in my kitchen.

One thing I miss having here, something I've used a lot in the past: a wok. And my stove/oven... electric. Ew. I miss cooking with gas, and that's one of the few things I don't like about the apartment I'm in now.

[PhantomTramp]

Well,

If you pronounce the word "cook" like Jacques Pepin does, then yes, I am a kook.

The Tramp