The recipe for Philippe Etchebest's incredibly delicious Christmas gratin

undefined 8 décembre 2023 undefined 11h57

The Editor

© Philippe Etchebest / Youtube / Hugo Delmotte / Charles Toulza

The end-of-year holidays are coming, it might be time to start thinking about what you're going to serve your guests. And there, it's panic, blank, a blank page. Calm down, Philou is here to help you, with a superb Christmas potato gratin recipe.

It's on his YouTube channel that the most emblematic judge of Top Chef regularly offers easy recipes to replicate at home. And for the past few weeks, he has been revealing his little tips for a top-notch Christmas meal (so generous, Philippe). So here's a recipe for a reinvented gratin dauphinois with potatoes, parsnips, and chestnuts (the ultimate comfort in one dish), and "you'll see, it's amazing". Now, let's get to the recipe.


The ingredients

For 8 people:

- 1 kg of potatoes (Bintje or Belle de Fontenay)
- 600 g of parsnips
- 1.5 liters of cream
- 4 garlic cloves
- Coarse salt
- 2 sprigs of thyme
- 100 g of chestnuts


The preparation

- After preheating the oven to 180°C, peel the potatoes and parsnips, and slice them thinly with a mandolin, being VERY careful with your fingers (they're precious little things).

- Crush the garlic cloves and put them in pans without even peeling them.Because who said that a Christmas recipe couldn't be (a bit) of a lazy recipe? So two cloves per pot, to cook the potatoes and parsnips separately. We put half of the cream in each container, and generously season.

- When the cream starts to simmer, we add our little slices into the pots, and we add the thyme. Be careful, the cream needs to cover the vegetables well, so don't hesitate to add more if necessary.

- We grab a dish with high edges, and rub it with garlic, to give it a nice flavor. Same thing with the butter, spread a good amount on all sides.

- We drain the vegetables, still separately, and ATTENTION, we keep the creams that we put back in a single pot, and put it back on the heat to reduce. The ideal is for it to reduce almost by half.

- During this time, we roughly cut the chestnuts toKeeping a little twist is important.

- Let's move on to assembly, and in order we'll put: potatoes, parsnips, a little bit of cream, chestnuts, twice, and finish with a layer of potatoes. We generously sprinkle (you know Philippe) with the rest of the cream.

- We put it all in the oven for at least 45 minutes, and it's ready! And the good news is that you can prepare it the day before and reheat it super easily. And if you're feeling a little fancy, don't hesitate to grate a bit of chestnut on top before serving...