What’s cooking today: Potato and Butternut Bake

Tony Jackman is in a vaccination queue. Here is one of our most popular recipes from last winter.

Ingredients

(for 4 servings)

6 large potatoes, sliced into scallops

1 medium butternut, peeled, seeds removed, and cut into rounds about 1 cm thick

1 large or 2 medium onions

2 or 3 cloves garlic, chopped finely

500 ml cream

500 ml stock (chicken or vegetable)

10 to 12 small rosemary sprigs

Plenty of salt and pepper, to taste (potatoes absorb a lot of salt)

2 Tbs cornstarch mixed with 50 ml milk

Butter to dot over each later and more for greasing the oven dish

Method

Have your potatoes, onions and butternut prepared in slices before you start. Grease a deep, large oven dish with butter. Start with a layer of potato scallops (rounds about 0.5 cm thick) to cover the bottom. Salt all over. Dot with small knobs of butter here and there. Place onion rings all over, about a quarter of the quantity you’ve prepared. Sprinkle chopped garlic over. Drop a few rosemary sprigs here and there. Add a layer of butternut, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Repeat the above layering (potatoes, salt, butter, onion, garlic, rosemary, butternut, salt and pepper) until all used up, ending with either a layer of potatoes or butternut at the top.

Heat the stock and cream together in a pot. Stir in the cornstarch mixed with milk and allow to thicken for a minute or two while stirring. Pour it over the contents of the oven dish to cover the ingredients. If it is shy of the top of the upper layer, add milk until it is sufficient.

Bake in a preheated 200℃ oven for 90 minutes (more if required) or until done and the top layer is golden brown. Some ovens may need a slightly lower temperature of 180 to 190. DM/TGIFood

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