Endive and Potato Gratin
This is a hearty main dish on its own, leave out the bacon lardons and serve as a vegetarian dish, or could be good as a side dish to go with a roasted meat. I researched a few endive gratin dishes and this is a concoction I created of ingredients that I think all go well together and it worked very well.
Ingredients
- 500 g About 6 Endives – quartered lengthways
- 2 - 3 tbsp of Walnut Oil or Olive Oil
- 500 g of waxy potatoes Charlotte
- 50 - 75 g walnut pieces
- 2 tablespoons of chopped flat leaf parsley
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- 100 g blue cheese cut into cubes – I used Roquefort
- 100 g bacon lardons
- 100 ml crème fraiche or double cream
- Grated Gruyere cheese for the top
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Cut the endives lengthways in quarters. Put in one layer in a roasting tin, pour over the walnut oil or if you prefer olive oil. Then season with black pepper and thyme. Roast in the oven at 180℃ until they have caramelized and softened, around 35 minutes.
- Meanwhile cook the potatoes in their skins for 15 minutes (either steam or boil them). Cool quickly in cold water and slice them into rounds. They don’t want to be too soft as you need to be able to slice them after cooking.
- Add the crème fraiche to the sliced potatoes.
- Sauté the bacon lardons and drain.
- Cut the blue cheese into cubes.
- In a prepared baking dish put a layer of the endives at the bottom, (half of the endives) sprinkle over the bacon lardons, blue cheese, walnuts and chopped parsley.
- Next put the layer of sliced potatoes
- Finally put the rest of the endive quarters on the top.
- Sprinkle with the grated Gruyere cheese – I used Gruyere for the nutty taste but you can use any grated hard cheese, Comte, Abondance or Beaufort would be good too.
- Bake in the preheated oven (180℃) for around 20 minutes, until the top is bubbling and golden.
Notes
Leave out the bacon for a vegetarian dish.
You can try different blue cheeses in this dish and different hard cheeses to grate over. Maybe add a breadcrumb topping.
You could swap out the bacon for smoked salmon pieces
Enjoy this as a main dish with a green salad or as a side dish to a roasted meat.