dinner

I can't really give full verbal expression to what goes on in my kitchen sometimes.

Gratin de pommes de terre à la dauphinoise

Innocent Yukon Gold potatoes, totally unaware what fate has in store for them, prior to adding boiled milk, cream, gruyère, nutmeg, white pepper custard.



With the custard added. This is the potato equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction at this point. I decided to get tricky, and temper the egg with some boiled milk, then dump the egg back into the milk, add the nutmeg, etc., and most of the gruyère, then reduce that into an actual custard. (Escoffier has you toss all the ingredients together unblended before bunging the whole into the oven. Not sure it would make that much difference, but this was pretty smooth.)



After 45 minutes in a moderate oven. If you lived here, you'd have quadruple bypass by now. (Only you wouldn't, because it's been about a year since the last gratin, hence the urgency to do this tonight.)

The notorious arugula, white peach, pignola, white pepper, and chèvre salad. Eat your friggin' heart out.

The filet, plated, with the madeira and green peppercorn sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and the gratin. Killer-diller.