I'm cooking my way through Roy Andries de Groot's In Search of a Perfect Meal and I've reached a peak or as de Groot says The Most Luxurious way of serving Potatoes:French Gratin.

He takes his recipe from the Trois Gros brothers whom he regarded as the best cooks in France. The recipe is simple, just potatoes and cream. The technique is slow gentle cooking so the potatoes absorb all the cream.

l lb potatoes
one enamelled iron baking dish
2 cloves of garlic
2 medium yellow onions
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup heavy cream
salt/pepper

You take a pound of russet potatoes, slice them thin with a Benriner, drop into ice cold water.

You pick a 2" x 9" enamelled iron baking dish.

Preheat the oven to 275F

You take 2 whole unpeeled cloves of garlic, half them and rub each half thoroughly over the baking dish

Spread 2 tablespoons of unsweetened butter liberallly over the baking dish

Take two medium yellow peeled onions cut into chunks and along with the remains of the garlic cloves put them in the bowl of a food processor. Mash them to a puree.

Then add a cup of heavy cream and puree again.

Drain and dry potato slices with cloth, arrange them in overlapping layers in the pan.

Season the potatoes with salt and pepper, and pour the onion-cream mixture over them.

Place on low heat on stove and simmer the potatoes for l0 minutes exactly.

THE KEY to success is to keep the heat gentle.

Dot the potatoes with the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter.

Place in middle of oven. Don't let cream bubble up, and it if does lower the heat.

Taste potato after 90 minutes. If quite soft, turn up heat to 425F to brown the gratin to a golden crust. Takes up to 10 mins.

Bring to table and serve the gratin ALL BY ITSELF on hot plates.

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