Tartiflette for IHCC as well as my inspiration for The Virgin Blue

Lately I have been having fun reading, writing and snapping photos. At my book blog, Novel Meals, I compose book reviews. Then I prepare a dish inspired solely on the food presented in the book. Sometimes there aren't many food references or scenes, but there is usually a passage evoking a particular memory ....so then I wing it on the representative dish.

Well, I just finished reading Tracy Chevalier's book The Virgin Blue and wrote up my thoughts on this short novel. It's based in France (one of my ex-pat dream places) and one of the dishes I thought about was Tartiflette. I wanted to make that for IHCC too.

What would this have to do...at all....with I*Heart*Cooking*Club since the featured chef is a Mexican based cook? I'll tell you. Girlichef kindly scanned a few of Rick Bayless's French based recipes so I could participate with the Potluck theme for Rick's final week.

See...it links :-) For the book The Virgin Blue, potatoes came to mind as the representative dish. For me it did but hey, I like potatoes and when Isabelle’s father gave her a sack of them so she wouldn’t starve…I thought right then….A potato dish with French origins.

Well, my full review of this book may be found at here at Novel Meals if you'd like further explanation.

Here it is...a lovely Tartiflette



And here is Rick Bayless' take on this French recipe. :-)

Tartiflette
(Potato, onion, bacon and cheese gratin)

I adapted it a tad but...you will need:
1/2 pound bacon
2 medium onions, sliced thin
3 pounds of red potatoes, sliced thin
Cheese–the original recipe calls for Roblechon or grated Gruyere. I used a grated Swiss Gruyere.

Ready to prepare this Tartiflette?

If you have a food processor I would suggest to make use of it as you'll get uniformly thin slices of potato and onion. It also speeds things up. But otherwise, get out your cutting board and slice potatoes and onions in thin slices.

Cook the bacon while slicing up the potatoes and grating cheese. When the bacon is finished cooking, set it aside and add onions to the frying pan.
Scrape up the brown bits and mix gently with the softening onion. Add about 1/2 cup of water if everything gets too sticky in the pan.

Now add the bacon and potatoes to the pan. Stir gently so the potatoes and bacon and onion are coated with all these great juices. Sprinkle cheese on top, or be a rebel like me and layer the cheese.
Bake at 325 F for about 45 minutes.

This is my contribution to IHCC for the theme Potluck. Check out the folks over there to see what else was whipped up.



Bon Appetit!!