Buttermilk–Blue Cheese Potatoes au Gratin
This recipe for buttermilk–blue cheese potato au gratin combines the rich flavors of blue cheese, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce.
By Amy Traverso|Nov 05 2021|
Buttermilk–Blue Cheese Potato au Gratin
Photo Credit: Heath RobbinsMary Lou Carlson of Bothell, Washington, was one of 17 winners of our October 1988 “Great New England Cook-Off” for her fresh take on potato casserole. Like many “gourmet” recipes of the era, this buttermilk–blue cheese potato au gratin had a laundry list of ingredients, so we cut it back while preserving the rich flavors of the blue cheese, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce.
Yield
10 to 12 servings
Total Time
1 hour 30 minutes minutesHands-on Time
25 minutes minutes
Ingredients
6 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled sliced ¼-inch-thick
3 tablespoons salted butter, plus more for the pan
3 shallots, minced
2 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups whole or 2% milk
1 cup buttermilk
2 ½ ounces blue cheese, crumbled, divided
2 teaspoons mustard (Dijon or brown)
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoons table salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly grease a 9- by 13-inch baking dish. Arrange half of the potato slices in 3 overlapping rows in the bottom of the prepared dish and set aside.
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add shallots and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the flour, stir or whisk to blend, and cook for 3 minutes. Add the milk and buttermilk. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens and bubbles. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the blue cheese, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper; stir to incorporate.
Spread half of the sauce over the potatoes, then sprinkle with half the Parmesan cheese. Layer the remaining potatoes over the cheese and cover with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan.
Bake until the potatoes are tender and the cheese on top is golden brown, 65 to 75 minutes (you can run the dish briefly under a broiler for extra browning, if you like).
I was very disappointed with this recipe. At 350 degrees the potatoes were barely soft at the 40 minute mark. I turned up my oven and cooked for another 30 minutes at 375 degrees and the potatoes were “done” but really could have gone another 20 to 30 minutes. In my opinion the flavors didn’t meld and the blue cheese taste was “off” and I am a big blue cheese fan. As far as potato gratins there are many superior recipes out there, so I would not waste my time with this one. I have one salient observation – they mention they cut back on a “laundry list” of ingredients – perhaps these were necessary to get the flavor profile that was originally intended.
Dear Ellen,
Thank you so much for your comment. It raised red flags here in our offices and I went to the kitchen to double-check the recipe. And it turns out that you were right. In the course of reworking this recipe from the original version, I eliminated the step of par-boiling the potatoes first, opting instead to let them cook longer in the oven. However, when editing the recipe, I neglected to update the new cooking time in the body of the new text. Furthermore, the salt in the recipe, which served to knit all the flavors together nicely, was accidentally deleted.
The recipe has been corrected above. With the potatoes cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (I use a mandoline), they were nicely cooked at 65 minutes (I confess to liking them best when they’re mildly toothsome). And with the proper amount of salt, they were very tasty.
I’m very sorry about these errors. We try hard to print reliable recipes and hate to disappoint our readers. I test each recipe multiple times, and we have an independent food stylist test the recipes again in a separate kitchen. Usually, this system is enough to catch any small mistakes or missing info. Unfortunately, this one simply got past us. Thanks, again, for helping us identify the error.
Can you send the original winning recipe?
Would love to see the original recipe.
Define “large” yukon potatoes, please. I have found that weight is much better than number of potatoes.
BUTTERMILK BLUE POTATOES AU GRATIN
madlum Maino nat potatoes par boilled, peeled, and thinly
2.5 tablespoon salted butter 1 garlic clove, crushed
2 shallots minced
2 tablespoons King Arthur unbleached flour
1.5 cups milk, to room temperature
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup fresh parshley
2 once blue cheese, crumbles,
divided 3 cups sliced raw mushrooms
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
1 .5 cups coursley crushed potato
1 10-ounce package frozen
chopped broccoli
1 tablespoon diced canned pimiento
Arrange half of the potato slices in the bottom of a buttered 2 quart shallow casserole dish. Make the buttermilk blue cheese sauce as follow elt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Add garlic and shallots and saute for I minute. Add Hour, stir, and cook for 3 minutes more. Pour in titik und buttermilk all at once. Cook, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens and bubbles Remove from heat and stir in pepper, mayonnaise mustard. Worcestershire sauce, parsley, and half of the blue cheese.
Layer all the mushrooms over the potatoes in the casserole; top with half of the sauce and distribute the grated Jack cheese over the sauce. Layer remaining potatoes over cheese and spoon remaining sauce on top. Sprinkle with remaining blue cheese. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes. Sprinkle potato chips over top and bake an additional 10 minutes. Meanwhile, blanch broccoli. Arrange broccoli around outer edge of casserole and garnish with pimientos bake 5 minutes longet. Makes 6 servings