When I picked this recipe, it was because I wanted a side dish to have with dinner, I had potatoes on hand, and I have fond memories of my Dad’s versions of Potatoes au Gratin (which he has won prizes with. But that’s another post, if he’ll let me use his recipe). This… is not that.
I sometimes wonder just how much palates have changed in the last fifty-odd years. This is a vintage, not antique, recipe, coming from my Mother-in-Law’s 1960’s era McCall’s. I sped it up by slicing the potatoes with a food processor attachment, and I did bake it with cheese sprinkled on top even though the recipe didn’t call for that… My family likes cheese.
I didn’t have as many onions as the recipe called for – I had one large onion, so I will say that adding more would have been nice, at least if you like onion. Oh, and I doubled the amount of paprika, and used my lovely Spanish Smoked.
As you can tell from this photo, this isn’t a quick and easy side dish. First you parcook the potatoes and onion, then you make a roux-style sauce to layer them with, and they go together in an oven-save dish (I used my dutch oven) which has been lavishly buttered. I will say that this was a very large portion for the four of us – we didn’t eat all of it, and I made the leftovers into hash the next morning with the leftover ham and some green onions and that was delicious.
Once I had all my layers assembled I topped it with shredded smoked Gouda. It was what I had on hand – a good sharp cheddar would be lovely for more flavor here!
Farmhouse dinner: ham, veg, and scalloped potatoes. Hearty and filling!
My takeaway from this recipe was that it was bland. Filling, but not a lot of flavor. Had I not put the cheese on top, no flavor at all really. If you like that sort of thing, by all means! But we’ll do Dad’s version next time, which doesn’t require the steps of making sauce or parcooking. It takes longer to bake (and Dad usually does it on the campfire coals with the dutch oven) but the sausage and cream he uses makes it an extraordinary potato dish. This one was… pedestrian. Not worth the effort involved, for me, but tastes differ.
Scalloped Potatoes
- 3 lbs potatoes
- 4 large onions
- Boiling Water
- 3 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp. butter
- 2 tbsp. flour
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp paprika (I used 1 tsp)
- 2 1/2 c milk
- 2 tbsp. chopped parsley
Slice thinly potatoes and onions. Add them and 2 tsp salt to Boiling Water. Boil for five minutes, and drain.
Preheat oven to 400, and grease a 2 qt dutch oven.
In a saucepan melt the butter, then whisk in the flour, remaining salt, and spices. Slowly pour in the milk while whisking to form a roux. When thickened, remove from heat.
Place about 1/3 of the potatoes and onions in the baking dish, pour some of the sauce over it, and repeat until all the potatoes are in the dutch oven. Sprinkle parsley on each layer.
I sprinkled about 6 oz grated cheese over my version before baking it for 35 minutes. The gouda didn’t really brown up, but it was nicely crusty.
Comments
7 responses to “Vintage Kitchen: Scalloped Potatoes”
Looks way more exciting than my standard scalloped potatoes recipe, which only calls for potatoes, flour, milk, butter, and salt & pepper to taste. It’s really the ham or the breaded pork chops we bake on top that make it more interesting.
Oh, that would be a good way to make a one-pot meal.
Yet again, you make me laugh. I am just finishing a chapter where the Breedloves have dinner at home, and one of the side dishes is scalloped potatoes. With extra cheese. Swear to God. Wrote most of it two days ago.
Lol! Well, I made this Friday…
There’s been a lot of variations in diet over the decades. I remember when both Mexican food and Pizza were novelties as a kid. (Early ’60s.)
Now? About the only missing commercially available cuisines are from the African subcontinent, Indonesia and Middle Eastern foods. Chinese food? Indian? Mongolian? Japanese? 30 years back, SUSHI was strange and exotic. Now, Kroger and Publix both sell it, as does Sam’s Club.
Recipies from the ’30s-’60s WERE bland. A lot of the cookbooks were designed to get someone to go from “can’t cook’ to ‘can crank out the calories’ with a minimum of fuss and food poisoning. ‘Tasty’ didn’t necessarily apply! (See James Lilek’s ‘Gallery of Regrettable Food’ for a lot of cringe-inducing grub. http://lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html )
Oh, it’s fun to look back and wonder how our parents survived eating *that*
Ohhhh, that looks soooo good…!