Scalloped Potatoes

Is it scalloped potatoes? Is it potatoes au gratin? What is the difference? (both sound rather appalling)

Look, I had some potatoes and I wanted to make white-people food. I mean comfort food. I mean I wanted to use my mandoline slicer (one can only eat so many pickles!).

I basically went off of this recipe from about.com, but after checking out this recipe and the one in Veganomicon, I decided to spice it up a bit. I exponentially increased the amount of garlic, and then I added some serrano chili and marjoram, basil, sage, and smoked paprika. I also topped the final product with bread crumbs (perhaps this makes it also an au gratin?). It was still on the bland side, but then I've been contorting my palate (and my esophagus) recently with super spicy and sour foods.

Lest my reliance on about.com seem bizarre, what I really liked about this recipe was its relative 'normalcy.' You don't need Daiya cheese or Tofutti sour cream to make this. You don't even need soymilk. And yet, it tastes really rich and homey. If you omitted the nutritional yeast, one might not notice that this is a vegan recipe at all...

Adding flour to hot things is not wise (see mushroom gravy), unless you like unintentional dumplings. So I changed the method a bit; you mix the flour into cold water before adding it to the pot. The one other thing I'd add is that this dish has to set up and cool before you eat/reheat it. Otherwise, it's a big sloppy mess.

Scalloped Potatoes

(adapted from about.com)

Ingredients

1.5 potatoes, sliced about 1/3 inch thick

1/2 onion, chopped

1/2 serrano chili, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 TB + 2 TB olive oil

1/4 cup vegan margarine

1/4 cup flour

2 cups water

1/2 tsp salt

1 TB soy sauce

1/8 tsp turmeric

1 tsp each: marjoram, basil, sage, and smoked paprika
3/8 cup nutritional yeast

bread crumbs

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Mix flour with 1 cup cold water and let stand.
2. Add potatoes to boiling water and cook for 5-6 minutes. Drain well, then spread half the potatoes in an 8x8 casserole dish.
3. In a large saucepan, saute onions, garlic, and chilies in olive oil for 3-4 minutes. Reduce heat and add vegan margarine and flour-water mixture, stirring continuously until thickened.
4. Add remaining water, salt, soy sauce, turmeric, and other spices, stirring frequently until thickened. Add remaining olive oil, nutritional yeast, stirring again just until well mixed.
5. Pour half of the sauce mixture over half of the potatoes in the casserole dish; add a layer of the remaining potatoes, then cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.
6. Cover and bake for ten minutes. Uncover, and bake for an additional 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven.
7. Allow to cool before servings, as sauce will thicken as it cools.
Serves about 4.