Let’s talk potatoes, one of the all-time greats for versatile cooking. Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew, or in the case of this week’s recipe: mix them in gooey melty cheese, and before you know it, you’re enjoying a hot and tasty comfort food favorite with this Potatoes Au Gratin recipe. But we had to add our own Midamar spin to this, so if you love little bits of savory bacon added to your cheesy potatoes then we have you covered, because we included our always-fantastic Halal beef bacon mixed throughout, making a great recipe even better.
Getting into it, there’s a fair amount of prep for this recipe, if we consider the cooking time as the time it spends in the oven and not the time preparing the cheese sauce in a large pan. You’ll start by slicing the potatoes and onion and shredding all the cheese. If you aren’t familiar, you’ll want to freshly shred your own cheese rather than use pre-shredded to ensure that it melts correctly and leaves you with a smooth and creamy cheese sauce, perfect for mixing, rather than a thick and stringy cheese mess like you might get from trying to melt pre-shredded cheese. This cheese sauce is the real star of this recipe, without it you just have baked potatoes with onion and bacon, which actually sounds kind of delicious on paper, but do yourself a favor and enjoy these cheesy potatoes the way they’re meant to be enjoyed!
The cheese sauce is where you’ll spend most of the time on this recipe, as everything in it needs to be added in small batches and mixed throughout to reach the right consistency, before adding more. The milk will need to be slowly added, then the cheese will need to be slowly added and mixed to reach that smooth and creamy consistency. Doing all this too quickly won’t melt the cheese evenly and you can end up with a lumpy cheese sauce, so take the time to go slowly. This time spent is worth it when it becomes the perfect sauce for mixing into the potatoes, giving each piece that perfect cheese flavor that makes this dish so addicting. But the cheese train doesn’t stop here, after pouring the mix into an oven safe baking dish, top it with more cheese that will bake into a crispier cheese topping that makes this recipe addicting to scoop by the spoonful. It’ll all go into the oven, covered at first to really melt that top layer, then finish uncovered to make sure every piece of potato the entire way through is tender enough to pierce and enjoy easily with a fork.
There really isn’t much to this recipe, but it will take some time to make sure it’s made right. And if you take the time to get it right, you’ll have gooey and cheesy potatoes that are perfectly tender, full of flavor, and ready to be shared with friends and family with plenty for seconds. If that sounds good to you then give this recipe a try, or any of our other great recipes on our blog or check out our recipe videos on YouTube. As always, we hope you enjoy it, and we’ll see you next time with another fantastic Halal recipe.
