Delicious in Dungeon #66: Final Gratin

The starch boys are at war again.. can't you be more like cheese and tomato?

We've got a bit of a decision to make on this one. In Japanese cuisine, gratin is typically a macaroni bake, sometimes with veg and chicken or prawns, and bechamel sauce & cheese. But in Europe, its a potato bake, using slices of potato with bechamel & cheese.

All we know is this recipe has to incorporate plenty of our FINAL MEAT. So, I decided to get minced meat, and do kind of a cross between a cottage pie and a gratin dauphinois, which is the potato one. I also have a bunch of leftover vegetables, so we'll work a bit of that in too.

I've peeled the potatoes and im gonna shove them in the steamer, that way I can leave them and I dont even have to keep an eye on them as they do their thing.

I've roughly chopped the onion, and a bit more finely chopped the celery and carrots and we can fry them up in a bit of oil.

We could also enhance it with garlic, ive got a big jar of garlic paste I can crack open. 

We can also throw the meat in already, and just cook it all till its nice and browned.

Again just going with my nose on these spices. I'm using worcestershire sauce, oregano, nutmeg, black pepper, chilli powder and paprika.

Thats looking good, we can turn the heat off and let it sit while we make the bechamel sauce aka white sauce.

I always forget how deceptively easy this is... just a couple tablespoons of butter and flour...

melt the butter and mix it until it becomes a beige paste

and then you can just slowly mix in milk as you heat it until you have a nice thick sauce. Why did I use a fork instead of a whisk? I could have used a whisk. Whatever.

while thats warming up we can drop the cooked mince in the chosen casserole dish. I choose a big round flat one. Oh god its gonna get too full again isnt it.

Looks like a sauce, check!

Potatoes are steamed. Hmm. I dont know if they are supposed to be pre-cooked, they are quite a lot fluffier and starchier than I expected. Makes it hard to slice them actually. Still, that wont matter because the gratin looks all lumpy in the manga.

Our fluffy potato layer! yep its definitely overfull again.

The white sauce! And we can add another layer of seasoning here. I've just got paprika salt, pepper and nutmeg.

And now, we have a decadent 2 types of cheese! Cheddar for flavour and mozzarella for texture. Is it me or do they look like the mario bros?

****

Is it me or did i overreact to the overly wet pie and end up making something a bit dry? I should have added more/thinner sauce. Apart from that minor room for improvement though (and the potatoes cut a bit too thick), its super delicious! Meaty, cheesy, flavourful. I absolutely would make this again.