A Series of Thanksgiving Complements: Scalloped Potatoes
For Thanksgiving this year, I'm presenting a series of complements (with an e, not an i). I'm referring to sides/dishes that are complementary to the main dish—the turkey. There are many reasons for this: some people don't like turkey at all, others favor the sides more than the turkey, and perhaps the several SEVERAL people out there who choose not to eat turkey or meat.
Scalloped potatoes are one of my favorite potato preparations. They do NOT traditionally contain cheese (that would be potatoes au gratin), and they're so incredibly creamy due to the milk and roux base of the sauce.
Ingredients
1½ lbs of yukon gold potatoes
¼ cup butter
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, diced finely
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1½ cups chicken broth
1½ cups whole milk
salt, to taste (start with ½ tsp and keep adding as necessary)
pepper, to taste
Recipe
Rinse your potatoes and begin slicing them into roughly 1/8” slices using a mandoline slicer. Set the potatoes aside, covering them with damp paper towels.
In a saucepan on medium heat, melt and heat the butter until it begins to bubble.
Add the minced garlic and swirl it around, letting it bloom. Then mix in the diced onion.
You want to kind of muddle the onions in, mushing them even, to help them caramelize into the butter. Do this for 2-3 minutes on medium-high heat.
Sprinkle all of the flour in a distributive manner, and begin mixing thoroughly and constantly. This is your roux. Be careful not to burn this mixture; your heat should be medium-high to medium (NOT high). Keep whisking/stirring this roux into as smooth a paste as you can (the onions will still be in tact, of course)
While stirring slowly, pour in the chicken broth. Logically, adding the broth would result in a thin liquid but because of the roux and your constant mixing, it’ll yield a thick, creamy consistency (1:11 in video).
When the broth is fully incorporated and the mixture is thick, add half the milk slowly while stirring. Let it thicken, and repeat until all the milk is added.
Season with salt and pepper (to taste), and continue stirring every minute or so. The mixture will reduce down (note the change in the level of the sauce between clips at 1:30). Turn off the heat.
Preheat your oven to 350ºF.
Grease a 10” cast-iron pan with oil. Begin laying the pieces of sliced potatoes in concentric circles, slightly overlapping the pieces (kind of like Ratatouille, the dish and the movie!).
Once the entire surface of the pan is covered with slices, spoon a third of the sauce over top of the potatoes. Repeat this laying and layering process until you have three layers of potatoes+sauce.
Cover the cast-iron pan with foil, tightly sealing around the edges.
Bake, covered in foil, for 45 minutes. Then take the foil off and bake for another 45 minutes, or until beautifully browned. Let it cool for 10 minutes before serving, allowing the sauce to set/thicken even more.
Enjoy!
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