Vintage Kitchen: Scalloped Potatoes

When I picked this recipe, it was because I wanted a side dish to have with dinner, I had potatoes on hand, and I have fond memories of my Dad's versions of Potatoes au Gratin (which he has won prizes with. But that's another post, if he'll let me use his recipe). This... is not that.

I sometimes wonder just how much palates have changed in the last fifty-odd years. This is a vintage, not antique, recipe, coming from my Mother-in-Law's 1960's era McCall's. I sped it up by slicing the potatoes with a food processor attachment, and I did bake it with cheese sprinkled on top even though the recipe didn't call for that... My family likes cheese.

I didn't have as many onions as the recipe called for - I had one large onion, so I will say that adding more would have been nice, at least if you like onion. Oh, and I doubled the amount of paprika, and used my lovely Spanish Smoked.

As you can tell from this photo, this isn't a quick and easy side dish. First you parcook the potatoes and onion, then you make a roux-style sauce to layer them with, and they go together in an oven-save dish (I used my dutch oven) which has been lavishly buttered. I will say that this was a very large portion for the four of us - we didn't eat all of it, and I made the leftovers into hash the next morning with the leftover ham and some green onions and that was delicious.

Once I had all my layers assembled I topped it with shredded smoked Gouda. It was what I had on hand - a good sharp cheddar would be lovely for more flavor here!

Farmhouse dinner: ham, veg, and scalloped potatoes. Hearty and filling!

My takeaway from this recipe was that it was bland. Filling, but not a lot of flavor. Had I not put the cheese on top, no flavor at all really. If you like that sort of thing, by all means! But we'll do Dad's version next time, which doesn't require the steps of making sauce or parcooking. It takes longer to bake (and Dad usually does it on the campfire coals with the dutch oven) but the sausage and cream he uses makes it an extraordinary potato dish. This one was... pedestrian. Not worth the effort involved, for me, but tastes differ.

Scalloped Potatoes

• 3 lbs potatoes

• 4 large onions

• Boiling Water

• 3 tsp salt

• 3 tbsp. butter

• 2 tbsp. flour

• 1/2 tsp pepper

• 1/2 tsp paprika (I used 1 tsp)

• 2 1/2 c milk

• 2 tbsp. chopped parsley

Slice thinly potatoes and onions. Add them and 2 tsp salt to Boiling Water. Boil for five minutes, and drain.

Preheat oven to 400, and grease a 2 qt dutch oven.

In a saucepan melt the butter, then whisk in the flour, remaining salt, and spices. Slowly pour in the milk while whisking to form a roux. When thickened, remove from heat.

Place about 1/3 of the potatoes and onions in the baking dish, pour some of the sauce over it, and repeat until all the potatoes are in the dutch oven. Sprinkle parsley on each layer.

I sprinkled about 6 oz grated cheese over my version before baking it for 35 minutes. The gouda didn't really brown up, but it was nicely crusty.