Monday Night Gratin (and soup!)

Monday seems to be our day for gratins.

We started with carrot-ginger soup: saute diced carrots, onion, and celery in butter with a pinch of salt until the carrot starts to soften. Add some chicken stock, minced ginger, and some orange zest. Simmer until the vegetables are soft. Puree, add butter and white pepper, adjust seasonings, and serve.

For the gratin, I did a sauce from milk, light cream (saucen halbrahm), bay leaves, nutmeg, black pepper, chicken boullion, and a bit of cayenne. I brought this almost to the boil, then turned off the heat and let it steep for a couple of minutes before removing the bay leaves. Andrea built the gratin itself by layering thinly sliced potato, celery root, and smoked pork loin with the sauce. We topped the whole thing with gruyere and let it bake covered at 175C for 30 minutes, increased the heat to 200 and let it continue until the cheese was bubbly and brown.

Very, very nice food... gratins are great.