Potatoes Dauphinoise Recipe

Ok, so this is apropos of nothing except the fact that my mother-in-law loves these potatoes so I need to put the recipe where I can access from anywhere so I can cook them for her! Ideally, I only want to make them at her house so I can slice the potatoes with her mandoline. I think it's funny that she can't pronounce it but she likes it. "Dough-fin-wah." I think it's the French term for "princely."

Oh, and I just pulled out the notebook where I wrote it up, to get my notes on Lily's workshop (link coming soon...), and didn't want this to get lost.

We got the idea from an episode of Hell's Kitchen where Carol, the week's cocky contestant, suggested these as part of the "Each team comes up with a menu" competition. So we Googled it, of course, and found a couple recipes that I combined into this:

Jan's Potatoes Dauphinoise

• 2 lb potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 1/2 cups cream
• 1 TB dried rosemary (or preferably, equivalent fresh if you have it, of course)
• 1 TB dried garlic (or 1 chopped clove garlic)
• 1 tsp. each salt and pepper (I love me my kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, but use what you've got)
• 1 green onion, chopped (optional--for garnish)
• 1 c. grated cheese, Gruyere or Romano (again, use whatever mild semi-hard cheese you've got. If you've got Parmesan, I bet it'd work fine too)

1. Preheat over to 375 degrees F.
2. Bring 2 cups of the cream , and the rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper, to a simmer.
3. Add the potatoes and keep on medium. Stir gently from time to time, being careful not to break apart the potatoes. Cook until potatoes are soft. If you've got tons of time to let this bake, you can err on the side of underdone. If you've got to serve it asap out of the oven, cook them longer at this stage. (We think this is where the Hell's Kitchen contestant went wrong, by not cooking them enough at this stage.)
   
4. Transfer to a casserole or baking dish that's been sprayed with cooking spray or otherwise given a thin coating of oil. One recipe I found said to rub a clove of garlic around the inside of the dish; I thought that was cook.
   
5. Top with cheese, chives, and the remaining 1/2 cup cream. (When I try this at home I'm going to try it without the additional cream. Base your decision on the desired heavy-creaminess factor.)
6. Bake 20-30 minutes and let rest 10 mins (if possible) before serving.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, No. DuckyBoy has NOT tried them.