At the risk of people believing I must
be going steady with Melissa Clark, I am rushing this out in advance of the
latest winter storm. Even though I just
shared Melissa’s superb Pork Chop recipe the middle of last month, I could not
resist posting this latest triumph from last Wednesday’s “A Good Appetite”
column. This is stuck-in-the house,
freezing-cold-outside food at its finest.
It’s Melissa’s inspired combination of elements you find in a crisp
potato gratin and in a cottage or shepherd’s pie. It’s cheesy, rich and come to think of it,
gluten-free! It’s not the fastest dish
in the world to cook which makes me think that if you’re going to be housebound
for any length of time, it will be the perfect thing to prepare. It also has the great advantage of being a
one-pot dinner. Well, that is unless
like me and Melissa you feel it would look a whole lot better on a plate with a
nice big green salad tossed in a lemon vinaigrette. So what changes did I make to Melissa’s
original recipe? Don’t think I didn’t
try to make the original....
Rutabaga Melissa mixed her potatoes with
rutabaga, using a 50-50 ratio. Now rutabaga is what I grew up calling
Turnips. And I love the stuff. But
amazingly there were no rutabagas in two markets I went to. So I went for a
version completely topped with Russett or Idaho Potatoes. Melissa
also added 3 cups of spinach to her creation.
She explained that a cottage or shepherd’s pie would traditionally
contain peas but that spinach would more readily absorb the herb-infused cream
that is poured over and baked into the dish.
I was all set to do so myself. But first I’d found a cache of Russet Potato
cremini
mushrooms. I’ve been on a mission to shop my refrigerator first and stop having
to toss perfectly good ingredients that somehow get lost under more recent
purchases. I knew the mushrooms would
make a nice contrast to the ground beef.
But once they’d been added to the browned ground beef, there simply was
no room in the cast iron skillet for the spinach. So into the green salad it went. Finally, again in my quest to shop the
fridge, I found some sliced provolone, which melts beautifully even if it lacks
the nutty goodness of the Gruyere in Melissa’s original recipe. But the
result was simply superb: Comfort food for a three-dog night. So if we’re
having another one, might as well hunker down with this delicious meal. Here is the recipe:
Meat Mushroom and Potato
Skillet Gratin adapted
from Melissa Clark in The New
York Times
4-6
servings. Total Time 2 ½ hours. Active time considerably less.
4
garlic cloves
2
cups heavy cream or use Fat Free Half and Half, if you must.
2
cheese. Spoon reduced cream evenly over top.
Cover
pan tightly with foil and bake until vegetables are very tender, 60 to 75
minutes. The illustration shows the skillet prior to its last 10 minutes or so in the oven where it turns golden brown as in the opening picture. Cool 10
minutes before serving.
