Gratin

Earthenware dishes with a large surface area, that are shallow, low sided, and glazed on the inside, are perfect for slow-cooking in the oven and the formation of the golden crust of a gratin.

The most common summer squashes are green zucchini, the light green flying-saucer-shaped patty pan, and the gooseneck-shaped yellow crookneck. More obscure varieties with different flavors and textures can be found at farmers’ markets. One of my favorites is Costata Romanesco, a ribbed, mottled-green, zucchini-shaped squash. It has a sweet flavor and a texture that doesn’t break down while cooking. Choose small, firm squash with bright skin. Larger ones tend to be watery and seedy. Wash the squashes or rub them clean with a damp cloth. Trim off and discard both the blossom and stem ends. Once cut, squash can be stored in the refrigerator under a damp towel for several hours. The blossoms of summer squash are good to eat as well. Trim off their stems and shake them well to rid them of any bugs they may be harboring. Chop the blossoms, sauté them, and add to an omelet, a pasta sauce, or a risotto. Or cook them whole, stuffed with cheese perhaps, and poached, baked, or dipped in a simple batter and fried.

Baking potatoes, boiling potatoes, new potatoes, and fingerling potatoes—there are many kinds of each to choose from, some yellow, some blue or red. The red-skinned potatoes oft en called boiling potatoes have dense, white, waxy flesh that holds its shape when boiled. They won’t do very well for baking and make terrible mashed potatoes, turning gluey when mashed. Baking potatoes usually have light brown skins with white flesh that is dry and fluff y when cooked. These are best for baking and for French fries. Kennebecs and russets are common varieties. The tastiest, most versatile potatoes are the yellow-fleshed varieties such as Yellow Finn, German Butterball, and Yukon Gold. The flesh of these potatoes has a texture between that of a baker and a boiler. They have enough waxy starch to hold together when boiled, but not so much that they can’t be mashed—and best of all they are full of flavor, much more so than any white-fleshed variety. New potatoes are those that are dug while the plants are still green in the fields and have thin shaggy skins. They are a real treat. Fingerlings are smaller potatoes shaped, as you might guess, like long thin fingers. Some delicious varieties to try are Russian Banana, German, and Ruby Crescent. Select potatoes that are firm and free of discolored spots. Don’t buy potatoes that have green on the skin. This is caused by exposure to light and may indicate the presence of solanine, which is toxic. The green may be peeled away, but it is better to avoid having to do so. Store potatoes in a bag or cupboard away from any light. New potatoes and fingerlings never need to be peeled; just wash them well before cooking. Other potatoes should be peeled, depending on the recipe and your wishes. Once peeled, potatoes should be kept submerged in water to keep them from turning brown. I like this best when the potatoes are sliced quite thin (a mandoline makes this easy): that way the potato slices are less likely to curl up and burn on the edges. Yukon Gold and other waxy, yellow-fleshed potatoes keep their texture in a gratin; floury potatoes like russets fall apart.

This is a gratin made with a thin white sauce (béchamel), rather than one layered with milk, or with cream and broth. I use this method to cook other vegetables, such as cauliflower, wilted greens, or asparagus.

Brussels sprouts look like tiny cabbages, and indeed they are part of the cabbage family. Though they come in both red and green, the green variety is by far the more common. Brussels sprouts grow on tall, heavy stalks and make quite a dramatic sight when sold still on the stalk at the farmers’ market. Choose smaller sprouts that are tightly closed, bright in color, and have no yellowing leaves. They should feel firm and heavy for their size. To prepare the sprouts, remove and discard any damaged outer leaves and trim the stem, cutting it close up to the bottom of the sprout. Brussels sprouts can be cooked whole or cut up, or all the leaves can be separated from the core. Give the prepared sprouts a quick wash and drain them before using.

This gratin (macaroni and cheese by another name) is good to make when you find yourself with the ends of several types of cheeses. Almost any cheese works, except mozzarella, which gets a little stringy, and blue cheeses, which can take over the dish. I love Gruyère for macaroni and cheese, and cheddar, Jack, and Cantal are all good, too.

Beans cooked and served simply seasoned—like the cannellini beans in the previous recipe with garlic and rosemary—is only one of a great many bean dishes—soups, gratins, purées, and more—that are tastier when their primary flavoring comes after an initial cooking. I sometimes add garlic or herbs or even a bit of onion while the beans are cooking the first time, but I find that good flavor is most prominent when it’s added after the primary cooking. Added flavor can mean anything from a dash of olive oil to a complex tomato sauce, depending on the dish. For example, in the classic Italian dish called fagioli all’uccelletto (which means beans seasoned like a small bird), the cooked beans are simmered in a garlicky tomato sauce with plenty of sage. An example from Mexican cuisine is frijoles refritos, beans which, after an initial cooking, are fried in lard with garlic and sautéed onions, and then mashed. (There are exceptions to every rule, and one that comes immediately to mind is that when something like a ham hock or a prosciutto bone is used to flavor beans, it can be added at the beginning to cook slowly with the beans throughout their cooking.) The beans should be drained of most of their liquid before final flavorings are added. (Save the bean water to make a tasty soup base or to moisten a gratin as it cooks.) Once the beans are ready, stir in the flavorings. Continue to cook them together for at least 10 minutes or so, to allow the flavors to infuse the beans. To make gratins like the one that follows, first sauté onions, carrots, and celery together. To make sure they contribute their full flavor, season the vegetables to taste before adding them to the beans. Beans are very lean and the addition of a flavorful oil or fat makes them taste even better.

This spicy, cheesy rice dish was served on a regular basis at my parents’ house. It’s also perfectly delicious if you prefer to omit the crema and cheese and just serve the poblano rice on its own, saving you a few calories.

This is a cross between a traditional gratin and a savory bread pudding, and trust me, cauliflower has never tasted so good. Pancetta, cheese, cream sauce—need I say more?

We think of mac and cheese as a true-blue American invention, but this homey dish, made with nutty farro, is actually very traditional. Farro is one of the first cultivated grains and was ground to make bread, cereals, and pasta in ancient Italy. It’s becoming more popular in this country, but you still may need to visit an Italian specialty store to find it. Use it in salads, pilafs, and soups as you would use barley, which is also a good substitute for farro.

If you take soft, ripe fruit, top it with a fancy sauce like crème Anglaise, and run the whole thing under the broiler, you have a four-star dessert. But if you top the fruit with something like sweetened heavy cream, whipped just enough so that it holds some body when broiled, or sweetened sour cream—which hardly needs to be whisked—you can produce a similarly glorious dessert in less than half the time. Although this preparation is lightning-quick, it has to be constantly watched while cooking. Get the broiler hot, put the dish right under the heating element, and keep your eyes open. You want the topping to burn a little bit—it will smell like toasting marshmallows—but obviously not too much. When the topping is nearly uniformly brown, with a few black spots, it’s done. The fruit will not have cooked at all.

This is a fast method for producing a delicious potato gratin. I discovered it accidentally, and it’s since become a personal favorite.

This is an almost universal technique for vegetables, an honest, simple gratin with a topping of just a couple of ingredients. Since one of them is rich, flavorful blue cheese, butter isn’t even included. My vegetable of choice here is fennel—an underappreciated and almost always available bulb—but you could put this topping on almost any vegetable. For the cheese, you can use Gorgonzola, the soft Italian cheese; bleu d’Auvergne, a mild cheese from France; Maytag blue, the premier domestic variety; Stilton, the classic English blue; or Roquefort, which is made from sheep’s milk. All are good, but my preferences are for the stronger cheeses, such as Roquefort and Maytag.

Grown indoors in the dark, endives are among the perfect winter vegetables, usually used in salads but also lovely when cooked. This simple gratin benefits from good, dark stock, but the addition of Parmigiano-Reggiano will cover you if you resort to canned stock.

A simple and delicious way to use onions as a vegetable, one that long ago became part of the Middle American repertoire but has sadly dropped out. Time for a revival? This dish is unquestionably best with small onions—pearl onions—or with cipollini, the squat Italian variety, or the very fresh spring onions, usually sold only at that time of year and looking like scallions on steroids. It will work almost as well with leeks, which should be trimmed first, then parboiled for 2 or 3 minutes. If you must use larger onions, parboil for a good 10 minutes before peeling and baking. Convert this to a gorgeous spring gratin by adding a handful each of fresh wild mushrooms, like morels, and fresh peas to the mix. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: shallots, treated exactly as you would pearl onions.

Horseradish, as I’ve noted elsewhere, loses most of its potency when heated. It also retains its flavor, making it a great accompaniment to potatoes in this simple gratin. The trick is finding fresh horseradish—and then peeling and slicing it (some people wear goggles, not a terrible idea). If none of this appeals to you, just make the gratin with potatoes—it’s a beaut either way. Serve with roast chicken or meat. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: any root vegetable or tuber—carrots, parsnips, or turnips, for example—will work fine prepared in this style, alone or in combination.

There are many ways to make spinach gratin: you can use heavy cream as a medium (essentially making creamed spinach, then baking it with cheese) or stir spinach into a white sauce. This is the most substantial, essentially a custard, and my favorite.

This combination of crusty potatoes and salty anchovies will either appeal to you enormously or make no sense. One of the best-known dishes in Sweden, it’s served at almost every holiday party—logically, if you ask me, because it’s great snack food. It makes a good side dish for a hearty roast as well.

You may be surprised to find recipes with chicken, veal, and pork cutlets in my vegetable chapter. But the inspiration for this distinctive group of dishes is the vegetables that cover and surround the small portions of meat. When zucchini, eggplant, and (especially) tomatoes are at their best in the summer—and when I’ve an abundance of fresh tomato sauce in the refrigerator and freezer—I cook these beautiful one-pot dinners. I call these “skillet gratinati” because a large skillet or sauté pan is an essential part of the cooking. First you sauté your vegetables (in some instances) in the skillet; then you gently brown the meat cutlets in the skillet; then you layer lovely individual servings in the skillet; and then you develop your sauce in the skillet. Finally, you place the whole skillet in a hot oven, where the meat and vegetables cook until tender, the sauce thickens, and the crowning layer of grated cheese turns into a golden, crisp gratinato. (The whole cooking process takes little more than half an hour.) The first stage, on top of the stove, is the most fun, when you create your main dish and sauce in one pan in minutes. Having all your components ready and staying close to the pan will ensure success with this simple dish. The gratinati here are similar in technique but offer different ideas for ingredients. The most detailed instruction is in the main recipe that follows, with briefer descriptions in the equally delicious variations (page 315 and page 317). Once you understand the process, do experiment, using different meats, vegetables, herbs, and sauces—make the skillet-gratinate technique your own.

One day, when I was wondering what to make with a nice batch of fresh green beans, my daughter Tanya remembered a salad she’d had on a recent trip to Italy—perfectly cooked green beans, cherry tomatoes, basil, and cubes of fresh mozzarella. Because I love to take things a step further, I decided to combine the very same ingredients in a casserole and bake them with a crosta (crust) of bread crumbs and grated cheese. It was wonderful. And it is a fine example of how one simple procedure—baking ingredients coated with cheesy bread crumbs—can work so well with so many foods. The Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratinate (page 243) and the Crispy Baked Turkey Cutlets (page 310) use the same method. Of course, there’s another kitchen principle evident here: good ingredient combination lend themselves to different preparations. If you want to try Tanya’s original salad with green beans, tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella, I give a formula following the main recipe.