2014 Cooking Club Week 21: Tartiflette

Mr. CooL ICE

Tartiflette is an Alpine recipe and is often enjoyed by skiers. As a disclaimer, I have never had tartiflette made for me and have always made it myself by basing it off recipes from the internet. As with any dish, there are loads of different variations. Aside from the core ingredients of potato, cheese and bacon, this recipe's only additional flavouring is some salt and pepper seasoning. I also doubled the general amount of bacon, because bacon.

As the dish is quite forgiving, my instructions may be vague. You can try adding whatever herbs you like, but the bacon and cheese really make this. The type of cheese, reblochon, is vital. More on that later.

Ingredients:
400g bacon
1x full circle of Reblochon cheese
~300g potato. More if your dish is bigger than mine
1 large/2 small onions
3-6 cloves garlic
3/4 mug of white wine

Steps:
1) Cut potato into rough slices/chunks/cubes and parboil just enough until the outside is soft. Drain and set aside. Preheat oven to 180C.
2) In a large pot, fry the onion (roughly chopped) in a big glug of olive oil for 5 mins. When soft, add the garlic (chopped) and bacon.
3) Once the bacon is beginning to brown, add the white wine and cook to evaporate the alcohol (3-5 mins).
4) Empty half the potatoes into the pot and stir through. Approximately line the dish (lasagne dish is perfect) with the rest of the potatoes. Carefully pour the entire contents of the pot on top and try to evenly distribute the bacon and potatoes. If there is watery stuff at the bottom of the pot, add this too.
5) Cut the reblochon with a large knife down the middle and place the reblochon slices rind-side up to roughly cover as much of the dish as you can. As in the picture below, I cut mine into half-circles due to the shape of my dish, but this wouldn't always be necessary.
6) Place in the centre of the oven for 35-40 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes to cool slightly and serve.

Before oven, with reblochon arranged on top:




And voila:



About reblochon:
Reblochon is a core ingredient in tartiflette. I would go as far as to say that being able to source this is a deal breaker for this recipe. I have heard of other people making this with other soft cheeses such as camembert, but reblochon has the combination of taste and melt factor which is necessary for this. You can try another cheese, but it is not recommended,

Each disk has either a green or red circle, indicating their production type. The red is a cheaper, factory version which I found in Tesco for e4.49 for a half-circle. Green is a more expensive, 'farmhouse' version which I found in Sheridan's cheesemonger in Dublin. It cost about e15. I didn't really notice any difference between the two.

The rind is edible. You can peel or scrape it off before applying, but I personally think it adds a nice crunch at the end.

Yes! An excuse to make some bacon and cabbage to have loads of leftover bacon. Thanks OP!

hdowney

By bacon are we talking rashers or boiled ham?

Mr. CooL ICE

Bacon. I was feeling lazy so bought the Aldi pancetta, but you could just as easily cut up a 454g piece of back bacon. I would use unsmoked, but that's just me.

confusticated

Damn. I was going to do tartiflette! Better get my thinking cap on for something else.

Also, I've made this with softer cheeses, and it does work fine. It doesn't taste exactly the same, but it's still cheese melted onto baked potatoes and lardons - there's only so far wrong you can go with that combination!

I've never tried it, because I love the crunch, but peeling off the rind would leave you with very little cheese I reckon.

Mr. CooL ICE

confusticated wrote: »

Damn. I was going to do tartiflette! Better get my thinking cap on for something else.

Good timing!

Finally discovered a recipe that isn't already in TCC. Fingers crossed nobody else makes it in the meantime...