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Tartiflette


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:rolleyes: peut-être celui-ci?

LA TARTIFLETTE SAVOYARDE

Une vrai tartiflette must have cured savoyard ham or it is a cheap shadow of real Alpine cuisine! (Is that they one does it on the French boards, P'titPois?) :smile:

Sorry — some time ago I decided that I would never discuss about tartiflette anymore, and you can see that I have made a tremendous effort with clafoutis. :biggrin:

On my food forum (in French), both words are booby-trapped! Only those two words.

Seriously, I can tell you about the pela des Aravis, a traditional recipe that evolved recently into a touristy dish called "tartiflette", but AFAIK there is no such thing as a "vraie tartiflette".

For a pela, you need a nice ripe reblochon, diced potatoes and onions. The potatoes should be slowly roasted in butter with the onions, salt and pepper until they're nice and golden, almost soft. This already takes about half an hour. The potatoes should not stick to the pan.

Cut off some of the crust of the reblochon (at angles), scrub the remainder. Cut the reblochon in half horizontally like a layered cake and just lay both halves on the potatoes, cut side down. Leave the pan on very low heat and just forget about the whole thing for about 45 minutes or a bit more (NEVER stir), until the reblochon is melted and only a layer of warm crust covers the potatoes. Cut into pieces with a spatula and serve with a well-vinegared and shalloty green salad.

No ham, no bacon, no herbs, no oven. Just that.

What makes a pela interesting is the different stages of melted reblochon that can be found simultaneously in one serving: creamy and soft, crusty and pungent, and lightly browned and crunchy.

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:rolleyes: peut-être celui-ci?

LA TARTIFLETTE SAVOYARDE

Une vrai tartiflette must have cured savoyard ham or it is a cheap shadow of real Alpine cuisine! (Is that they one does it on the French boards, P'titPois?) :smile:

Sorry — some time ago I decided that I would never discuss about tartiflette anymore, and you can see that I have made a tremendous effort with clafoutis. :biggrin:

On my food forum (in French), both words are booby-trapped! Only those two words.

Seriously, I can tell you about the pela des Aravis, a traditional recipe that evolved recently into a touristy dish called "tartiflette", but AFAIK there is no such thing as a "vraie tartiflette".

: creamy and soft, crusty and pungent, and lightly browned and crunchy.

What's your French food forum? Probably a more fun way to practice my French in between class days than reading LeMonde online.

All I know about tartiflet is the one I ate while skiing in Les Trois Vallees last spring, which had ham. So I'm in no position to really argue. I guess I should have bought the souvenir tartiflette dish with the "authentic" recipe on the bottom, so I could compare it to yours. :biggrin:

Edited by Busboy (log)

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Add some ham or bacon or sausauge (some local cured pork thing) to the pela ptipois described and you have a tartiflette.

The really cutting edge home cooks add savoy cabbage, creme fraiche and then call it a

cabbage and potato clafoutis.

Actually savoy is an interesting area of France, a passageway. I suspect ptipois can speak about this eloquently and of course quite vividly. :wink:

I think that tartifle means potato in Savoy. And tartiflettes are even more apparent in in the Aravis' area.

I can tell you about the pela des Aravis

I suspect she is telling us how to make a "tartiflette". Which is the way I would make it. I don't eat pork.

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I can tell you about the pela des Aravis

I suspect she is telling us how to make a "tartiflette". Which is the way I would make it. I don't eat pork.

Well, tartiflette doesn't really exist IMO, which is why I'm giving you the recipe for pela (which, incidentally, doesn't contain any pork).

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Well, tartiflette doesn't really exist IMO, which is why I'm giving you the recipe for pela (which, incidentally, doesn't contain any pork).
This recipe was only recently introduced by the makers of Reblochon who needed to boost sales in the winter months. Although its origins were not exactly traditional, the result is fabulous, and has proven an instant hit in the Alps.

From this webiste.

Scroll down to the recipe.

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[From this webiste.

Scroll down to the recipe.

Thank you. Historically, I disagree with the website. Pela is an old and traditional recipe. The true part is that tartiflette was recently evolved from pela to suit tourist appetites in ski resorts and boost reblochon sales. I never heard of tartiflette before the late 1980s.

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I recall seeing tartiflettes on my ski trips in that area. Most of them, if not all had some pork product in them. I don't recall seeing it anywhere else.

I can be reached via email chefzadi AT gmail DOT com

Dean of Culinary Arts

Ecole de Cuisine: Culinary School Los Angeles

http://ecolecuisine.com

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What's your French food forum?

Be our guest. (The forum is run by two persons, a Swiss chef and I.) Anybody else is welcome too, but French is the lingua franca there...

Beware though — as I wrote above, I kid you not, the two evil words are booby-trapped :laugh:

I doubt I'll be doing much posting until my French dramatically improves. Look for something around 2007.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Look, I'm not going to claim to know the true authentic recipe because I insctinctively believe in ptpois on this. But I did prepare one and then talk about it afterwards in my eGullet food blog last year.

Here for the recipe

Here for the photo essay

Here for the talk about the recipe

:smile:

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:rolleyes: peut-être celui-ci?

LA TARTIFLETTE SAVOYARDE

Une vrai tartiflette must have cured savoyard ham or it is a cheap shadow of real Alpine cuisine! (Is that they one does it on the French boards, P'titPois?) :smile:

Sorry — some time ago I decided that I would never discuss about tartiflette anymore, and you can see that I have made a tremendous effort with clafoutis. :biggrin:

On my food forum (in French), both words are booby-trapped! Only those two words.

Seriously, I can tell you about the pela des Aravis, a traditional recipe that evolved recently into a touristy dish called "tartiflette", but AFAIK there is no such thing as a "vraie tartiflette".

For a pela, you need a nice ripe reblochon, diced potatoes and onions. The potatoes should be slowly roasted in butter with the onions, salt and pepper until they're nice and golden, almost soft. This already takes about half an hour. The potatoes should not stick to the pan.

Cut off some of the crust of the reblochon (at angles), scrub the remainder. Cut the reblochon in half horizontally like a layered cake and just lay both halves on the potatoes, cut side down. Leave the pan on very low heat and just forget about the whole thing for about 45 minutes or a bit more (NEVER stir), until the reblochon is melted and only a layer of warm crust covers the potatoes. Cut into pieces with a spatula and serve with a well-vinegared and shalloty green salad.

No ham, no bacon, no herbs, no oven. Just that.

What makes a pela interesting is the different stages of melted reblochon that can be found simultaneously in one serving: creamy and soft, crusty and pungent, and lightly browned and crunchy.

Oh my God. When I was in Wales recently I made a "tartiflette" in almost exactly this manner. The only difference was that as I was using Le Ratte potatoes I par-steamed them and I put a little white wine into the gratin, so that the melted cheese combined with this make a 'sauce'. I was being ordered about by some Frenchies from Grenoble, so maybe this helped.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting. My husband's family (originally from Auvergne) very thinly slices the potatoes and onions, layering them with onion and places the reblochon on top, and bakes... no precooking. It's much like his "potatoe pie" done in puff pastry with no cheese.

"Gourmandise is not unbecoming to women: it suits the delicacy of their organs and recompenses them for some pleasures they cannot enjoy, and for some evils to which they are doomed." Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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Interesting. My husband's family (originally from Auvergne) very thinly slices the potatoes and onions, layering them with onion and places the reblochon on top, and bakes... no precooking. It's much like his "potatoe pie" done in puff pastry with no cheese.

In Auvergne, this is called a truffade, and cantal is used instead of reblochon.

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This is very interesting. I first had tartiflette only 2 years ago while in Geneva and Annecy....and that is where I fell in love with tartiflette. I tried a few recipes but they didn't taste right, until I saw Lucy's!

gallery_16100_231_1099280480.jpg

And that is the best tartiflette and only recipe I use now. But here in Seattle I can only get Reblochon once in a while when a very nice cheese seller sneaks it in to the country! :angry::angry::angry:

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This is very interesting. I first had tartiflette only 2 years ago while in Geneva and Annecy....and that is where I fell in love with tartiflette. I tried a few recipes but they didn't taste right, until I saw Lucy's!

gallery_16100_231_1099280480.jpg

And that is the best tartiflette and only recipe I use now. But here in Seattle I can only get Reblochon once in a while when a very nice cheese seller sneaks it in to the country!  :angry:  :angry:  :angry:

That looks like one really good tartiflette, Wendy. :cool:

I think you can get Reblochon from fromages.com. Tell me more about what ham you use, etc! Are you using creme fraiche epaisse or just heavy cream (That works quite well when you can't get creme fraiche)?

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Interesting. My husband's family (originally from Auvergne) very thinly slices the potatoes and onions, layering them with onion and places the reblochon on top, and bakes... no precooking. It's much like his "potatoe pie" done in puff pastry with no cheese.

In Auvergne, this is called a truffade, and cantal is used instead of reblochon.

Does the "truffade" include creme in any form, or just the potatoes, onions, and cheese?

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That looks like one really good tartiflette, Wendy.  :cool:

I think you can get Reblochon from fromages.com.  Tell me more about what ham you use, etc!  Are you using creme fraiche epaisse or just heavy cream (That works quite well when you can't get creme fraiche)?

I use creme fraiche and smoky bacon I get from a local butcher sliced thick, then I cut it into lardons. It's really the best recipe, turns out just perfect! But then YOU know that already!! :biggrin:

I will check out fromages.com. Thank you!!

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  • 11 years later...

Several people have asked for details on how to make this, so here we go.
You need potatoes, lardons, onions, cream, milk, salt and pepper. And grated cheese. And butter.
Slice up the onions fairly thinly – about 1-2mm slices. Put them in a pan with hot butter and the lardons and fry them off until the onions are transparent and the lardons cooked through.
While this is cooking, slice your potatoes. I cut them 2mm thick using a mandoline (details on mandolines here – bonus chip recipe!) – be careful not to cut your fingers.
You need enough potatoes sliced to roughly fill your chosen container – I use a Pyrex dish, something more rustic is fine. I don’t bother peeling the potatoes first because I’m lazy and the skin’s good for you.
Put the potatoes in the dish, pour in enough cream and milk to almost cover them, put the lardons over the top and squish them into the crevices and in between the slices of potatoes.
Cover with a piece of tin foil and pop into the oven at 180°C for an hour. Uncover and check the potatoes are cooked, then sprinkle over a couple of handfuls of grated cheese, then back into the oven for another 10 minutes. Finish it with a few minutes under the grill if you like it really crispy.

A couple of notes:

  1. Yes, you can add garlic, either minced up with the onion or just cut a piece in half and wipe it around the inside of your baking dish. I don't do this because my young daughters find the taste too strong.
  2. Yes, you can add Reblochon cheese to the recipe. The problem with this is its price - the entire cost of the above version of the recipe is about €2; adding €12-15 worth of Reblochon changes the economics completely.
  3. No you can't add mushrooms. Mushrooms? Really?
  4. Actually you can add anything you want. Except white wine, as Felicity Cloake does in The Guardian. That's just wrong.
Edited by Chris Ward (log)
  • Like 4

Chris Ward

http://eatsleepcookschool.wordpress.com

I wrote a book about learning to cook in the South of France: http://mybook.to/escs

 

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