Kenji's Hasselback Potato Gratin Casserole

Another J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT at Serious Eats recipe.

Damn you, once again, Kenji. What a brilliant idea!

It's basically a straight up gratin recipe, actually LITERALLY straight up. Instead of flat horizontal sliced potatoes, he turns them on edge to maximize crispybits and nummyedges.

I started out with a "brilliant" plan of my own, and that was to slice the taters, and apply the Best Roast Potatoes Ever recipe cooking them directly on the oven rack. It took about 3 minutes of fiddling down that road to realize it would take a week to precook them all that way, and it's July.

Started googling for images of what I was kind of wanting, and clicked on the photo that once again led me to Kenji. Dude is ubiquitous.

I don't have a mandoline yet, but I made halfway reasonable use out of the wide SLICE side of my cheese grater. Good enough for me. Also only had orange-colored grocery store cheddar, but I did have a big ole block of parm. Uncooked seasoned cheese/garlic/cream stuff tasted gratin-ey enough. All I have is my square baking pan, so I basically did a row around each edge, then a center row. I barely had enough to fill the pan and they were slanted, not packed vertically, so next time (for me) get an extra half pound or so of potatoes.

Recipe at the Serious Eats link above. His looks way prettier than mine for some reason. Plus, I added bacon bits and rosemary because I'm weak. Plus these will get frozen and microwaved at work, so they can use the boost. Pretzel logic.

I will take a cheater photo that shows only a small section of my messy casserole, to make it look like it's all perfect, because magic of internet.

Now that I have this recipe under my belt, it'll be much easier next round. Seemed a bit fussy when I was in the middle of it, but nah, we can do this no problem.

Appearance aside, it EATS perfect and that is most important! I plated and ate with a bit more seasoning and sliced green onions.

The crispybits kind of sealed the top of the potatoes together, so it's fun kind of peeling slices apart. Those that are uncomfortable using a knife AND fork might find this to be a deal breaker, because mine were really sealed at top in clumps, and you need a second utensil if you want to separate the slices. Texture and flavor: Stunning! He's right, it's the balance of crispy edges and creamy center. This is a very remarkable dish and I'm converted.

Wow, I bet there's 15 servings here. Edit: there were about 10 me-sized small portions, or 5 Ugly American sized portions. These are really good and I might plan on getting 8 out of a batch next time.

I know what to do differently next time, and I can't wait! Proper cheese, and really pack the pan full. (rant mode) Also onions or leeks, but WTH is the deal with one leek costing $3 US, same price as a big bag of pounds of yellow onions? They used to be cheap. Same goes for shallots. Alliums grow in dirt. Not rocket science. I guess less mainstream alliums get the gourmet tax. In the US, a tiny packet of chives is 2000% the cost of green onions. Therefore, cheap me uses yellow onions and green onions. (end rant mode)

Also season more thoroughly. Besides all that, this would get a solid 8 for a first try, and I'm fairly confident next batch will be in the WOAH unbelievable good range.