This meal was a spur of the moment decision. A few days ago my uncle sent me some recipe for a 3 Cheese Potato Gratin. The vision was dancing in my head all that day and by late afternoon I found myself at the grocery store picking up all that was required. First I had to find a hunk of meat that might go with taters. I decided on a pork loin, no bone. Didn’t have a choice, if I did I would choose bone-in. Off we go!
The first thing I did, by accident, was leave the gratin recipe at work, so I wasn’t able to do it piece by piece. And besides, it didn’t call for bacon, that ain’t right. And as I’m reading it now, I didn’t follow the recipe at all.
The gratin dish was supposed to cook for probably an hour and twenty. But since I put in a portable convection oven, I figured about an hour would do it. This meant both the meat & taters would take about the same length of cook time.
First, remove the meat from the fridge to bring to room temperature.
Then get your Mise together for the taters.
2-3 lbs of potatoes (Yukon best, or russets)
2 pats of butter
Lots of cheese Gruyere, Fontina (sorry Jan) & Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 cup or so of heavy cream, maybe more
1/4 pound rendered bacon, however you like it.
3/4 finely diced onion
Some unbleached white flour
Peel the potatoes, which I haven’t done in years. You see, Big D makes a big deal about NOT peeling the potatoes, he likes this best. I do too, but I can be a bit contrary from time to time, so now I peel my potatoes just to make him mad. Slice them about 1/8″ thick and put in cold water until you’re ready to assemble. Preheat the oven to 350, my favorite temp.
Cook the bacon a bit or all the way, it’s up to you.
Git yourself a nice casserole and rub butter all over the inside.
Line the bottom of the casserole with overlaped pat dried taters.
Layer in your goodies, maybe some pepper too.
Lightly just a bit of flour in.
Reserve enough Goodies for the top. When at the last layer pour in cream over all. Then layer on the last of the cheese & bacon. Pop in to the oven !!!
Get yer pork loin and rub with extra virgin olive oil. Rub on your favorite dry rub, paprika, salt, celery powder, onion powder, black pepper & chile pepper. Yum.
Fat side up in cast iron pan with trivet lay it down. Get yourself 3 pieces of bacon and lower them, while turning on to the pork roast.
And now you have Pork Loin Roast with Bacon Twizzles. This one took only an hour to come to 155 internal temp. Let rest for 15 minutes. Let the tater gratin rest for 15 as well.
The naughty bits have been blurred to protect the weak of heart.
Over the years, I’ve found adding bacon to the potato gratins really makes the dish. Without it one wonders where’s the love? Adding bacon to pork roasts doesn’t hurt either. The gratin was so yummy warm & cheesey. Crunchy on the top and creamy down below, oh dear.
Xo Xo