Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 lbs potatoes. I used little dutch yellow potatoes
- 3 cups whole milk
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 1/4 cups gruyere cheese
- 3 tbs heavy whipping cream
- 2 tbs butter
- dash of nutmeg
- Salt & Pepper
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Slice all of the potatoes. You don’t want to go paper thin or else they’ll desintegrate but you also don’t want too thick or it’ll affect the cook time. I’d like to say “slice to an 8th of an inch” but that would assume that I actually measured that perfectly. Rough guess though is stick to around 1/8th of an inch if you’re looking for thickness direction.
Bring the milk to a boil in a pot (keep an eye on it since it may start to foam up to the point of boiling over). Toss in a heavy dash of nutmeg – this will help bring through some of that potato flavor. I know you’re thinking “dude it’ll taste like Christmas”, trust me it won’t. As soon as the milk comes to a boil toss in all of your potatoes and a heavy dose of salt and pepper. When it comes to leveling things out you want to make sure that the milk just covers the potatoes. If need be add a little water (my preference here is to actually just remove some potatoes). Let that simmer uncovered for 25 mins.
While that’s simmering smash and dice 2 garlic cloves and spread evenly on the bottom of a baking dish. Also during this break go ahead and grate all of your cheese – 1 1/4 cup is nice, more is even better. Set the cheese to the side.
Once the 25 minutes are up start layering the potatoes. One layer of potatoes, one layer of cheese, one layer of potatoes, one layer of…you get the point. After all of the layers have been set, pour your 3 tablespoons of heavy cream over the top and dollop the butter evenly. Also, grab about 2/3 of a cup of the seasoned milk you cooked the potatoes in and pour over the top.
Put in the over for 25 minutes, bake, good god it’s good.