Lazy Veggie Dauphinoise Bake

Is it me or is there a slight green tinge to this photo?

Um, yep, that's my Hungry camera skills tripping up there. This is what happens when I start to get impatient with myself and want to get stuck into the eating part. But to be honest I don't think it was entirely camera-foolishness.

I've had these new potatoes sitting in my kitchen for over a week. Usually, I buy my groceries with at least a vague idea of what I might use them in. In this case though, I had a driftless moment at the market and just decided to buy a load. You know how you just go with these random urges sometimes.

As you have probably worked out, they were starting to go a little green by the time I came to use them. There they were, looking at me forlornly, and I just didn't know what to do with the buggers. Then it hit me – dauphinoise potatoes!

Now they're usually done as more of a side serving, right? But I was feeling lazy and wanted to make something low maintenance, ie an all-in-one dish kind of meal. And the simplest way I could think of to do this was to insert layers of veg into the dish, rather than the usual layering of just potatoes that you get in a er, dauphinoise potato dish (funny that).

You should really cook this at a lower temperature and for longer, so that you can really allow time for all the veg and potatoes to roast through, and seep up all that double creamness. But, as you can safely assume, I'm not patient enough for that, and so I just bake at a higher temperature to get to the stage of eating in the most speediest way. And even so, I took mine out after half an hour! I was just wanted to eat, man.

So adjust the temperature below as you will – if you're more patient, and want a truly baked dauphinoise result, lower the temp by maybe 20-30 degrees, and cook for 50-60 minutes. If you're Hungry...well, just bake til it looks hot enough, like I did ;-)

Lazy Veggie Dauphinoise Bake (v)

Print-friendly recipe

Fills a 1 litre casserole dish (serves 2-3):

300g new potatoes, thinly sliced
Pinch of salt
100g courgette, thinly sliced
200g aubergine, thinly sliced
200g tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 tbsp oregano
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
100ml double cream

1. Put the potatoes in a pan with a pinch of salt and cover with water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer for 10 minutes until just done. Drain and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. In a 1 litre dish, layer the courgette, followed by the aubergine and tomatoes, overlapping if necessary. Sprinkle over the oregano.
3. Layer over the cooked potato, overlapping to cover the whole top. Scatter the chopped garlic evenly over the top, then pour over the cream.
4. Place in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes until the cream starts to set.

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