I don’t remember what the exact occasion was, but at one point last year I told my husband that he could pick out any menu which his heart desired and I would make it for him. His selection: “steak, potato gratin, chocolate cake, oh and I guess something green on the side.”

So as you can see, potato gratin is something of a favorite in our house, though one which we do not make very often because of all that yummy cream! And therefore, we were curious to give Dorie’s recipe a try (printed here in Bon Appetit magazine), one which the rest of the French Fridays with Dorie crew had already completed last year.

The ingredients in Dorie’s potato gratin were all familiar to me, but her method was slightly different from the recipe which we generally use (from Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles cookbook) in that she does not cook the cream & potatoes together on the stove top before throwing them in the oven. Instead she warms the cream and then pours it over the layered potatoes. This results in less time on the stove top but more time in the oven.

We invited some friends over and served Dorie’s potato gratin along with pan seared duck breast and roasted broccoli. Everyone loved the gratin and proclaimed the recipe a winner. In fact, they polished off all but one small leftover portion before I remembered that I had forgotten to take a picture, so above is the photo of my leftover plate the following evening.

And while I agree with my guests that Dorie’s gratin was indeed very tasty, I will probably go back to my Les Halles recipe where the potatoes are blanched in cream before being baked, just because it takes slightly less hands on time and produces equally yummy results.