Mashed Potato au Gratin | Food Wishes

[Music] hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with mashed potato o Graton that's right I'm topping my favorite potato side dish with my other favorite potato side dish to produce what I'm sure will be eventually known as the greatest potato side dish of all time maybe even the greatest recipe of all time but I don't want to oversell this so I'm going to stop the hype and to get started what we'll do is peel some rusted potatoes and then cut those in half right across the middle and then if we stand those up on the flat side it's pretty easy to cut those accurately in half again to make quarters and once our potatoes are cut and covered by a couple inches of cold fresh water we will place those on high heat and we will add a very generous amount of salt to the water which is always a key to making great mashed potatoes and after giving those an unnecessary stir with our measuring cup and splashing out some water on the stove we will wait for this to start to boil oil at which point we can back our heat down to medium and we will cook our potatoes until they're very tender but not falling apart and while we're waiting for that to happen we can do a little prep on the potatoes we're going to slice for the top and when I say a little prep I mean very little since all we'll do is peel them and slice them in half lengthwise and then we'll simply leave those covered in water until we're ready to slice and that's it at this point we'll go back and check our potatoes which like I said should be very very tender as tested with a knife but they shouldn't be cooked so much that they start to fall apart otherwise they'll absorb too much water which obviously dilutes the flavor but these were perfect so I pulled them off the heat and drained them very well and then once those have been thoroughly drained we can put them back in the pot and we can grab our potato masher and give these an initial Mash okay before we start adding stuff to mashed potatoes it's always a good idea to mash them up fairly fine first and once we feel like that's happened we can stop and add our butter as well as some salt and if you swing that way you can also add a few shakes of cayenne and then we'll grab our Masher again and continue mashing and mixing and occasionally stirring until that butter disappears and our potatoes are fairly smooth and once that's been accomplished we can stop and add the last two ingredients which will be some whole milk plus a nice big handful of whatever cheese or cheeses we're going to use and I'm using something called K which is very similar to Grier and either would work as would a nice age cheddar or of course a combination and by the way for extra richness you could use cream instead of milk but for me these are plenty Rich enough so I go with milk and once we have that Mash mixed and stirred in our potato component is done possibly since it's not really done until we taste it and mostly we're checking for salt and if it's taste in a little bit Bland go ahead and stir some more in otherwise once that's set we'll go ahead and butter a casserole dish and we will transfer our potatoes in and as usual we'll make sure we're pressing everything into the corners since the last thing we need here is giant air pockets and even though these potatoes will sort of level out as they bake the more uniform they are now and the smoother we get the top the better it's going to be for the next step and then once our baking dish has been mashed potatoed we're going to go ahead and season the to top with some freshly ground black pepper plus another generous application of salt and you might be wondering why not just put those in the mashed potatoes to begin with well it's because in the next step as you'll see we're going to place sliced potatoes on top of this and when we lay those down I want those to be in direct contact with this extra seasoning and how much of a difference is this really going to make I have no idea but it's more than none and that's it once our surface is seasoned we'll go ahead and grab our potato is that we cut in half lengthwise and we will carefully and very thoughtfully start making 8in slices and by the way I usually discard the first slice or two since it's a little small and please note as I'm slicing how I'm using my index finger on top to not only sort of hold things together but after each slice I'm sliding that finger over like an eighth of an inch and then place the side of the knife against it before the next cut which is a great way to get nice even slices and then the other thing to notice is I'm not chopping down with the knife we start with a nice smooth forward cut and then once we hit The Cutting Board we finish the slice by pulling it back towards us which is going to give you a lot more control and accuracy than if we're cutting straight down and that's it once cut we'll go ahead and make sure that's nicely lined up and we'll slide the knife underneath and kind of fan that out and we'll transfer it on top of our mashed potatoes oh and the reason I placed this one in the center was because I thought I was going to do three rows but after slicing and placing on two more I realized I could fit four so I went ahead and reposition those so the moral of the story is never be afraid to change your mind in the kitchen and that's it once I determined my final layout I went ahead and continue cutting and placing in fair warning depending on the size and shape of the baking dish you use as well as the size and shape of your potatoes you may have to adjust your rows to make it all work but bottom line we pretty much want to cover the surface with those potatoes being fanned out at a little bit of an angle like you see here and then once those have been placed on we'll go ahead and generously solve the top all right even though the surface was seasoned this is a good amount of potato we're putting on and as you know there's nothing worse than an underseasoned potato so we will definitely want to generously salt the top and speaking of generously once that's set we'll take some melted butter and brush that all over the top and don't be shy we want these nicely drenched and that's it once buttered we'll finish this up with some more cheese starting with our graded cheese which again for me was compte and as usual I don't like to put too too much on the top okay we don't want to completely cover the potatoes so we'll basically just do a nice scattering and then last but not least we will finish up with a nice gradient of Parmesan the real stuff of course parmesano regano except no substitutes and then before this goes in the oven because I have everything piled up so high I'm going to transfer this onto a sheep pan since I'm very sure some of that butter is going to drip out which I do not want burning on the bottom of the oven and that's it this is now ready to transfer into the center of a 450° oven for about an hour to an hour 15 minutes or until those potatoes on top our tender and it hopefully looks like this and by this I mean the most gorgeous potato GR you or anyone has ever seen I mean come on imagine the looks on your guest faces when you set this down on the holiday table or any table and then someone says hey I thought we were having mashed potatoes and you're like yeah we are they're under the potato Graton and then you don't have to but I probably let this sit for about 10 15 minutes before you serve it and as it rests it's going to sink down a little bit and believe it or not get even better looking so I did let mine rest before I grabbed a spoon to serve up a portion and you better believe I'm getting some of that crusty goodness from The Edge and yes it looks just as beautiful as an individual portion as it does as a whole and then because of the contraction obligated pictures I went ahead and sprinkled over a few chives before I grabbed a fork to dig in and I'm going to start with just a bite of the mashed potato component with some of that cheesy crustiness attached and just that part is worth making this for but when you combine those beautiful buttery mashed potatoes with those cheesy sliced potatoes on top and you bring in that extra textural element this becomes a whole new exciting way to eat potatoes and you know me I'm a mashed potato fanatic so I'm extremely excited just to eat plain mashed potatoes so with this I could barely contain myself and please note I did a very straightforward version here right if you wanted to add some other things to this like garlic or herb or sauteed onions or things like that go ahead I mean you are after all the Chef John of your mashed potato Graton and this is really just a technique video so as usual feel free to play around with the ingredients and besides the incredible appearance and amazing textures and fantastic taste this seems like something that's really hard to make that only someone with high-end culinary skills could pull off but as you saw that is not the case and of course we'll will keep that between us but anyway that's it what I'm calling mashed potato oraton whether you decide to make this to impress your guests at a special occasion dinner or you just want to enjoy what many people are calling the greatest potato side dish ever invented either way I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and is all always [Music] enjoy

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 401,747

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Id: TArhhq2Syxo

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2023