Tartiflette
A hearty dish for winter.
Recipe type: Main Dish
Cuisine: French
Preparation time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 40 mins
Total time: 1 h
Serves: 4-6
So… unlike in Vietnam, it gets pretty cold in France in the winter, as should by now be evident. For those cold and snowy winter nights (and your yearly cheese overdose), French cooking has precisely the thing: tartiflette!
Tartiflette is basically potatoes with lardons and reblochon (I think of it as a Savoyard dish, but apparently it’s a recent invention, derived from an older dish called péla–though the H also thought it reminded him of provencal dishes. I’m not an expert). Today you’ll find tartiflette on the menus of pretty much every other Savoyard restaurant, and it’s a typical skiing season dish.
Without further ado…
- 1kg firm-fleshed potatoes
- 2 white onions
- 200g lardons
- 1 whole reblochon (roughly 500g)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Scrub the potatoes and rinse them. Put them into boiling water and leave them 20 minutes, until cooked.
- Meanwhile, cut the onions into thin slices.
- Pre-heat oven to 200°C (if you have a mode that allows you to turn on only the top heating element and have that temperature, use it).
- In a frying pan on high heat, put the onions, fry until fragrant. Add the lardons, and fry until they are cooked. Add a dash of pepper and a generous amount of salt (remember you have 1kg of potatoes which pretty much don't have taste).
- Withdraw the potatoes from the heat. If you don't like potato skin on, peel them.
- In a large baking dish, put the potatoes cut into largish chunks (or roughly 2cm-thin slices). Alternate with adding the onions + lardons, so that everything is well mixed together.
- Slice the reblochon sideways in halves, and cut each half into 8 parts. Arrange the reblochon bits atop the mixture potatoes + lardons + onions.
- Put in oven, and leave to cook for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is golden and crispy.
- Serve hot with a side dish of salad or other light, fresh greens.
