A New Take on Tartiflette : The Tomiflette

Tartiflette is a dish from Haute-Savoie in the French Alps. It's one of these fascinating recipes which has been dreamt up by a PR company. In the 80's Reblochon cheese was not doing well, sales were plummeting. Therefore in order to promote it, the company decided to revamp an old Provencal dish called Pea by adding Reblochon on the top, named it Tartiflette,

and Bingo, this much-loved gratin made with potatoes, onions and....cheese on the top was almost an instant success. Not able to put my hand on Reblochon, instead I used Tomme de Savoie.

The reason behind this madness is easily explained. Each year, for the past 5 years, my father "fait une cure". This is an alien concept in the UK, it may specifically be French I don't know. Anyway, the French National Health Service pays for a course of three weeks of treatment in a SPA town. 


In father's case, to fight obesity, he spends three weeks in Haute-Savoie and occasionally visits the local cheese-makers for the sake of his daughter's happiness... only...He chooses a Tomme de Savoie, posts it and it arrives packed in a special paper on which the Tartiflette recipe can be found. Well done, PR people this is what I called neatly wrapped.

Reblochon like Tommes are made with pasteurized cow's milk cheeses, therefore if you don't have any of the latter, here are some alternatives, experiment with  Brie, Camembert, Gruyere, Emmental or  Ballyoak and rename the dish, a briflette or a camemflette might win a few smiles around the table. In the meantime here is the
 Tomiflette Recipe



Ingredients:
250gr of any of the cheeses named above, thinly sliced
2 potatoes sliced, up the proportions if you use a large dish 
butter
1 onion, sliced
salt, pepper

Method:

In a frying pan, melt the butter and cook the onions and the potato slices thoroughly but don't let them brown.

Season well and transfer to an oven-dish,
Slice the cheese on the top

Cook in a preheated oven (medium heat) until the cheese has melted. For a bit of colour slide under the grill.
Et voila

2 comments:

Fuss Free Helen said...

I love Tartiflette, or variations thereof. Perfect perfect skiing food. I wish I had cheeses sent to me to make it from!

Solange Berchemin of Pebble Soup said...

Indeed I am priviledged, And this year we got two instead of one. Double lucky since the weather is closer to January than June.
Thanks for dropping by.

si

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