I served this with the beef fillet with three sauces but it is delicious with chicken, pork, on it’s own… Another Ottolenghi recipe, it can be prepared a day in advance and left in the fridge until you want to put it in the oven. You can also replace the sage with thyme – or use a mix of both. For me the best thing about it is that you don’t have to peel the potatoes and, unlike other dauphinoise-type dishes where you use ‘normal’ potatoes, these never seem to be under cooked.
My top tip is don’t use those really massive sweet potatoes you often find in the supermarket, you want them to be small enough so that when you pour the cream over them they are nicely covered, not just toes dipping. You’ll see what I mean.
Sweet potato gratin
Serves 4-6
Prep: 15 mins Cooking: 1 hour 10 mins
6 medium sweet potatoes (about 1.5kg in total)
5 tbsp roughly chopped sage, plus extra to garnish
6 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp coarse sea salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
250ml whipping cream
Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas mark 6. Wash the sweet potatoes (do not peel them) and cut them into discs 5mm thick.
In a bowl, mix together the sweet potatoes, sage, garlic, salt and pepper. Arrange the slices of sweet potato in a deep, medium sized oven-proof dish by taking tight packs of them and standing them upright, next to each other. They should fit together quite tightly so you get parallel lines of sweet potato slices (skins showing) along the length or width of the dish. Throw any remaining bits of garlic or sage from the bowl over the potatoes.
Cover the dish with foil, place in the oven and roast for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and pour the cream evenly over the potatoes. Roast, uncovered, for a further 25 minutes. The cream should have thickened by now. Stick a sharp knife in different places in the dish to make sure the potatoes are cooked. They should be totally soft.
Serve immediately, garnished with sage, or leave to cool down. In any case, bringing the potatoes to the table in the baking dish, after scraping the outside clean, will make a strong impact.
A buddy encoraged me to look at this page, brill post, interesting read… keep up the nice work!
I just made this today and thought I’d search to see if others make this as well.
I totally agree with the sweet potato size, and would also say reduce the amount of salt they recommend – though it can sometimes hit a nice sweet/salt balance per bite, I found overall, I’d have preferred it less salty!
Lovely blog btw!