Tartiflette
Alpine Potatoes with Bacon, Onion and Reblochon
Potatoes, smoked bacon and onion under half a reblochon, baked until the cheese collapses and its rind crisps. It is ski-resort food, heavy and wonderful, and it is not ancient: the dish as it is known now was popularised in the 1980s.
National Geographic Traveller's account says the name comes from tartifla, a dialect word for potato. Alpine restaurants began serving the modern dish in the 1980s, and in the late 1990s reblochon producers published an official recipe, adapting an older and plainer potato dish called péla, in part to use up cheese that was too ripe to sell.
Its recipe simmers 750 g of potatoes, fries 150 g of smoked lardons with an onion, adds 100 ml of dry white wine and cream, and bakes the mixture under half a reblochon at 200°C for 15 to 20 minutes.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 750 g waxy potatoes, scrubbed
- 150 g smoked lardons
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 100 ml dry white wine
- 100 ml crème fraîche
- 1/2 reblochon (about 225 g)
- Black pepper
Method
- Cook the potatoes Boil the potatoes whole in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes, until just tender. Drain, cool slightly, peel if you like and cut into slices 1 cm thick.
- Fry the bacon and onion Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan). Fry the lardons in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for 5 minutes until golden. Add the onion and cook for 8 minutes until soft. Pour in the wine and let it bubble for 2 minutes.
- Assemble Fold the potatoes and crème fraîche into the pan with plenty of pepper, then tip into a gratin dish. Cut the reblochon in half horizontally and lay the pieces on top, rind side up.
- Bake Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cheese has melted into the potatoes and the rind is golden and crisp at the edges. Serve hot with a green salad.
No salt is needed. The bacon and cheese supply it.