Oi! Fish and Chips!

I have a deep affection for British culture. I love Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens just as much as I do the Beatles, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Nick Hornby novels, James Bond, "Blackadder" and "Downton Abbey". All this Englishness gave me a really bad case of anglocreep: I use random and sometimes rather obscure British slang... all... the.. time... My boyfriend loves to make fun of me when I ask him if he wants to watch something on the telly, and when I call the Bruins a bunch of fucking sods (which, you know, they ARE!). Well, he can piss off; I am not giving up my British slang! On to the food then, mate!

While admittedly, cuisine is not really the British's forte (there should be a law against boiling everything to death...), there are few typically English dishes that never fail to satisfy. An iconic street food in the UK, fish and chips has been a popular working-class snack since the Victorian era, and just like most popular foods, it's been recycled by the trendy people, and you can now find really upscale eateries serving fancy versions of the good old dish. Some of those are delicious, but my favorite has always been the old-fashioned version they serve at Hurley's Irish Pub: a huge hunk of haddock and a big pile of pub fries. In England and Scotland, you can still find the old-school fish bars, where they hand you the piping hot fillets and fries wrapped in newspapers. Crispy batter around a nice piece of white fish and golden fries... can't resist that!

Sadly, a really good fish and chips is just as difficult to find as a really great burger, and while I do hang at Hurley's often enough, I eventually decided I should learn to make it at home. I was getting ready to watch the latest "Dr. Who" episode and I had two beautiful tilapia fillets and lots of red-skin potatoes in the pantry. I suddenly felt inspired to whip up a traditionally British-themed dinner!

Home-made fish and chips is very easy to make - albeit a bit messy, and while it will still be fried, it will still be much healthier that what you'd get at a restaurant, or out of a box from the frozen food aisle! You can use a deep-frier if you have one, but I make mine in a cast-iron frying pan and I get wonderful results! Use an oil with a very light flavor for the frying: sunflower, peanut or light olive oils are the best. Give yourself a treat and try it with extra-virgin olive oil at least once: I know it's pricey, but you haven't lived until you've had home-fries made with that liquid gold!

Obviously, there are plenty of fish in the sea that you can fry up in your pan. Traditional fish and chip is made with white-fleshed fish like cod or haddock, but you can use which ever fish you like, as long as it's firm enough to handle the coating in batter and frying (be careful when you buy cod, by the way: try to find the farmed stuff, as those little guys are the victims of intense over-fishing). You could go really posh and use salmon, or add Cajun spices to your batter and fry up some catfish! The Australians even use shark fillets in their fish and chips, so feel free to get very creative.

I like to make a beer-batter for this recipe: it somehow feels very English. The beer you use will affect the final taste of your dish just as much as the fish, but given how many amazing micro-brewery beers are available on the market, the possibilities are endless. Pick something you enjoy drinking, and try to make the flavor of the beer complement that of the fish you use. I used a pale ale with my tilapia, and it was delish!

The batter recipe is very basic, so I suggest that depending on the type of fish and beer you use, you add some seasoning to it to round up the flavor. Lemon juice and zest, garlic powder and dried herbs can be whisked in to taste, to give a little something extra to your fillets.

3/4 cup oil

1/2 pound red-skin potatoes, scrubbed and cut into thin wedges

1/2 to 3/4 pound of white flesh fish fillets

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups all-purpose flour, and a little extra for dusting

3 heaping tablespoons baking powder

1 bottle of cold beer (about 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups, usually) - I used St-Ambroise Pale Ale

Before you can fry the potatoes, they need to be par-cooked, which you can do either by boiling or steaming them until they begin to get tender. With either method, make sure they are nice and dry before you fry them: the less moisture on the potatoes, the quicker they will crisp up in the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with tin foil. Preheat the oil in the frying pan over medium heat. Season the fish with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (the salt will help get rid of extra-moisture in the fish, which will make your fillets nice and meaty as opposed to too flaky).

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and beer until well-mixed and shiny. The texture will be like thick, gooey cream.

Dust the fish with a little flour, shaking off the excess (this will help the batter "stick" to the fish).

You may have to fry the fish in batches, depending on the size of your pan. Dip the fillets in the bowl of batter, and make sure that it is completely and evenly covered in the mixture. Carefully place the fillets in the pan.

When you noticed the batter on the bottom is starting to look firm, flip the fillets over using cooking tongs. Cook until the batter is golden and crispy on both sides, about 5 minutes.

Place the fillets on the baking sheet and put them in the oven, which will finish up the cooking and keep them warm until the fries are ready.

Line a large plate with a couple of layers of paper towels. Keep the frying pan on the stove, but raise the heat to medium-high. Using the same oil you used for the fish, carefully (and I mean CAREFULLY! Hot oil splashes are not fun!) put the potato wedges in one layer in the pan. Give them a few minutes, until you can see them getting golden and crispy, then gently flip them over with slotted spatula. When they are golden and crisp on all sides, transfer them to the plate so the paper towels can absorbs the excess oil. Take the fish out of the oven, and serve with the fries and some lemon wedges.

The batter will have fried up golden and crispy, and the fish in the middle will be nice and meaty. If you'd rather not use beer in your batter, cold carbonated water works just as well, but the taste won't be as rich, so spice up that batter a bit more than you would if using beer.

Now doesn't this look awesome?! And it tastes just as good as it looks! So turn up the volume on your Rolling Stones records, grab a Neil Gaiman book and enjoy the Britishness! Oi!

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Potatoes and Mushrooms

I decided to break the little tofu rut the blog had gotten into lately with a good old meat and potato recipe!

I was in the mood for something comforting and old-fashioned for our Sunday night dinner: it just felt like the kind of night where I wanted to stay home, apron-up and spend the evening in the kitchen while blasting Bad Religion records. The winter's dragging on and it's making me crave rich comfort food and angry political music. I'm quirky like that.

Tenderloin is my favorite cut of pork, mostly because it's affordable, but also because it's really versatile: you can roast it, grill it, chop it up to stew it, slice it thin and stir-fry it... I try to always have one or two in the freezer because there are so many ways of turning it into a plateful of yums. I usually have a lot of Asian-themed recipes for pork, but I wanted to try something a bit more traditional.

This dish has a classic Sunday dinner flair to it, like something you'd see Betty Draper whip up for a dinner-party on "Mad Men": meat, potatoes, mushrooms, a creamy sauce... just classic! The ingredients are mostly pantry-staples I always have around, and the technique is absolutely idiot-proof easy, making it a recipe everyone can pull-off with great success.

You can either mix up regular potatoes and sweet potatoes, or use just one kind, but the sweet potatoes can offer a lovely change of pace texture-wise, and they also boost the vitamin content of your plate.

1-pound pork tenderloin, trimmed
3 medium white potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch chunks (or 2 white potatoes and 1 sweet potato)
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper   
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 package mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon savory
1 teaspoon ground sage
1/4 cup all-purpose flour   
2 cup milk

1 cup chicken broth   
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard   
Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter a 13 x 9-inch glass baking dish. Place the pork in center of baking dish, tucking the thin end underneath. Arrange the potatoes around the pork.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, garlic, onions, spices and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper; sauté for 8 minutes or until mushrooms are brown.

Stir in the broth and mustard. Whisk flour into the milk; stir the mixture into the pan and bring to a boil, stirring. Boil and stir for 1 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the pork and potatoes and roast for another 25 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in thickest part of pork registers 160°F.

Transfer the pork to a cutting board; let rest for 5 minutes. Return the potatoes and the sauce to the oven for 5 minutes; stir well. Slice the pork crosswise; serve with the potatoes and sauce, sprinkled with parsley.

As you can see from the picture, I should have used a wider roasting dish. But hey, the sauce helps cook the meat just as much as the roasting does: no problem. The smell is also completely amazing as the dish cooks, and the meat comes out tender and juicy.

It's a nice, easy recipe with a lot of down time, so give it a try next time you are in the mood for a delicious, hearty meal!

Niçoise Salad

The nice weather is sticking around, and so is my insatiable appetite for fresh stuff! At the risk of being redundant, here is another salad recipe, but this one is way more bulky: a real meal-salad, the famous Niçoise! My coworker mentioned making some last week, and I have been craving it ever since. The Niçoise is a salad that became strangely fashionable in recent years, which amuses me very much, as it was originally meant as a cheap, filling salad. Just like when jeans (which used to be a strictly lower-class garments) ascended to haute couture, the working-class meal transcended to fine cuisine!

The recipe was first introduced to North America by none other than Julia Child, and some of the ingredients are still hotly debated by purists, particularly in the Nice region, where they don't like the addition of steamed potatoes (as this salad originally contained no cooked vegetables of any kind). Personally, it reminds me very much of puttanesca sauce, because a lot of the ingredients are preserves. In fashionable restaurants, the canned tuna is often replaced with fresh pan-seared tuna. Though very elegant, this luxurious twist on the original recipe seems a bit odd to me, as a salad made mostly of preserves ought to be a fairly inexpensive, yet elegant and nourishing meal. If you have the budget to afford fresh tuna, feel free to indulge, but there is nothing wrong with the canned stuff (as long as it's dolphin-safe, of course!).

A word about hard-boiled eggs: I know it can seem a bit scary if you've never hard-boiled an egg before. How do you know it's done? That's when a kitchen timer comes in very handy, because there are no external signs that the egg is done. Get a small sauce pan, fill it halfway with water, add a pinch of salt (this helps prevent the egg from cracking) and bring to a boil. When the water is boiling, dip your egg in the water with a spoon a couple of times (again, to prevent the abrupt temperature change-related cracks), then lower the egg so it is submerged. You may have to experiment a bit, but the general rule of thumb is that it takes 10 minutes to hard-boil a large egg. Take it out of the saucepan with a spoon, and when it's cool enough to handle, gently knock it with the back of that same spoon until the shell cracks, and peel it off.

Kill two birds with one stone and marathon-steam your potatoes and green beans! Get your steaming apparatus ready and steam the potatoes for 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the size), until they are easily pierced with a fork. Add the beans to the steamer and steam for 2 minutes, until they are bright green. Fill a bowl halfway with ice water while everything steams. As soon as the veggies are done, transfer them to the ice water bowl and let them cool while you get everything else ready.

Yes, I know, it's an awful lot of prep for a salad. But trust me, it's worth all the fussing!

Older recipes for Niçoise salad contain raw red bell pepper and anchovies, two things that I am not especially fond of even if they are prevalent in southern French cuisine, so my version omits them (I decided to replace anchovies with artichoke hearts), but I kept the spirit of the salad alive with tuna, green beans and black olives. At the risk of shocking purists, I decided to add some steamed baby potatoes. Just because I love potatoes.

8 cups Romaine lettuce, washed, drained and dried, chopped
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 pound green beans, steamed, stalks trimmed
1/2 pound red-skin baby potatoes, steamed and quartered
3 hard boiled eggs, sliced
1/2 cup Niçoise or Kalamata olives
1 can flaked white tuna, drained
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
Chopped parsley, for garnish

In French cuisine, presentation is almost as important as composition, and Niçoise is no exception. Of course, you can toss everything together in a big bowl (it's what I do most of the time if I am not entertaining), but to create an traditionally elegant plate like what you'd be served if you wandered in a fancy café, here is what you do! Create a bed of lettuce in 4 serving plates. Then divide the tomatoes, potatoes, eggs, artichoke and green beans between the plates, keeping the ingredients together (e.g. a small pile of tomatoes, a small pile of potatoes, etc.), scoop some tuna in the middle of the place and sprinkle with black olives. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve the dressing on the side so your guests can add it to their taste.

Obviously, it's not a vegetarian-friendly salad, but there is a vegan version "Appetite for Reduction" which, although highly inauthentic, makes a very decent substitution for veg-heads, or for people like my boyfriend, who simply don't like canned tuna. It's also a lighter version, because as yummy as it is, classic Niçoise salad is not exactly diet food. Try the following version if you are watching your waistline:

1 (16 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons capers

1/2 pound baby red potatoes, steamed

1/2 pound green beans, stalks trimmed, steamed

1/2 small red onion, cut into thin strips

1/3 cup of Niçoise or Kalamata olives

8 cups chopped red leaf lettuce

1 cup cherry tomatoes

Fresh parsley and chopped chives, for garnish

Place the chickpeas in a mixing bowl, and mash them with a fork or small potato masher. There should be no whole chickpeas left, but it shouldn't be completely smooth either. Add the capers and 2 tablespoons of whichever dressing you decided to use (dressing recipes are just below). Mix well and set aside. Place the lettuce in wide bowls or plates. Place a handful each of potatoes and green beans in piles on the lettuce, along with a wedge of sliced onion and a handful of tomatoes. Place a scoop of the chickpea mixture in the center and top with the olives. Garnish with fresh herbs and serve the dressing on the side.

You could also use a ripe avocado, thinly sliced, to replace the eggs, instead of the red onion.

Here are a few great dressings that go well with this French classic. There require the use of a food processor; when I make dressings, I like to use the blender attachment of my little Cusinart Smart Stick immersion blender. That gizmo was worth every penny!

This one is from Nadia G.'s "Cookin' for Trouble", and I have to confess that it's my one of my favorite salad dressings. Ever. It's sweet, with just enough tang from the garlic and mustard, and if you use walnut oil, the nutty finish is to die for:

2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons honey
2 garlic cloves
1/3 cup cider vinegar
2/3 cup walnut (or olive) oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth, thick and emulsified.

The following two are from the aforementioned "Appetite for Reduction".

Balsamic Vinaigrette:

1/4 cup cashews

2 tablespoons scallions, chopped

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon agave nectar

3/4 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Put the cashews in a food processor and pulse. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend for at least 5 minutes, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides often, until completely smooth. Transfer to a sealable container and refrigerate until ready to use.

Green Goddess Garlic Dressing:

2 to 3 garlic cloves, peeled

1/2 cup fresh chives

1/2 cup fresh parsley

2 tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon miso

1/3 cup water

2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pulse the garlic, chives and parsley in a food processor until chopped up. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides a few times. Transfer to a sealable container and refrigerate until ready to use. It will thicken a bit when chilled, so don't be temped to thin it with more water!

Whichever version you decided to make, Niçoise is really a full meal of a salad, and is a perfect lunch or light summer dinner. A crisp, slightly sweet white wine or rosé is de rigueur here; C'est La Vie would be my pick.

Shepherd's Pie

In Québec, every family has their recipe for shepherd's pie (commonly known here as pâté chinois - more on that in a minute), and they will each insist that their version is the real shepherd's pie. In that aspect, people here are very much like Italians, who all claim to make the original (and the best) minestrone or bolognese or pizza, or whatever. Every version is probably delicious, but family traditions are big deals in Italy, as they tend to be here in Québec.

It's no wonder that this dish became popular here after the massive waves of Irish immigrants settled in Canada after the potato famine, as it's very similar to Irish cottage pie. But it is called pâté chinois because during the railway construction in the late 19th century, English bosses taught their crew's cooks how to prepare it for the workers, who were predominantly Chinese. Those workers brought the recipe back to the cities and villages, and tada! It became known as Chinese pie.

Nothing says "homey winter food" like a steaming plate of shepherd's pie. It's one of those staples of Québec cuisine that makes winter a little easier to deal with. Hearty, filling and comforting; those recipes are priceless when the harsh January weather is around the corner (like today's -31).

This recipe is the bare-bones, uber-simple comfort food dish that my mom makes. We are a weird family, so we stray from tradition by putting the corn on top of the potatoes. Crazy, huh? It serves 4 to 6.

2 1/2 pounds Russet potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup milk

2 to 3 tablespoons butter

1 pound ground beef (or a mix of ground beef, pork and veal)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 (24 ounce) can creamed corn

Olive oil

Sea salt and ground pepper

Bread crumbs (optional)

Place the potato chunks in a large pot and cover with water. Boil until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork. Drain in a colander and put back in the pot along with the milk and butter. Mash until creamy and set aside. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Preheat the olive oil a frying pan over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and sauté until the onions are soft and golden. Add the ground meat, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until crumbling. In a Pyrex or casserole dish, put the meat and onion mixture in a layer. Cover with the mashed potatoes. Spread well to cover the meat. Add the creamed corn as the top layer. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, if using. Place in the middle of the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the top layer is golden and bubbling. Serve with ketchup, if you must.

This is the way my mom taught me to make it, but it's easily spiced up. Here are some ways to shake it up:

• substitute one pound of the Russet potatoes for sweet potatoes
• add another clove of garlic and use ground lamb instead of beef (technically, it is shepherd's pie only if mutton meat is involved - the proper name for this dish with beef is "cottage pie", not that anyone cares...)
• add a small can of corn nibblets to the creamed corn
• sprinkle with grated aged cheddar or Gruyère before putting the dish in the oven

Shepherd's pie can easily be frozen and re-heated later. It's surprisingly delicious reheated in the frying pan. Now, I know some other shepherd's pie recipe make a very firm casserole that you can artfully cut out and get a perfectly layered piece in your plate. Mine isn't like that at all, as you can see.

But the messy look has it's advantages! I prefer to generously sprinkle my plate with freshly ground pepper and vigorously mix the whole thing so that I can have a bit of every ingredient on my fork in every bite. If you want a nice, more photogenic shepherd's pie, I am told that the key is to bake it at a lower temperature, for a longer period of time.

Chicken Breast with Lemony Bombay Potatoes

This little gem of one of the infinite variations of what I like to call the "Lazy-Ass Roast Chicken Breast" technique. You take a chicken breast (or 2, if you have another mouth to feed), season it along with a few veggies, throw it in the oven, wait about 30 minutes and eat. No meat to trim and arrange, no marinade or sauce to prepare, and only one Pyrex dish will get dirty (unless you want to make a bit of rice to go with it, in which case one small sauce pan will also get used)! And so far, every variation I tried turned out just awesome. That's what I call genius.

There is a page in "Cook With Jamie" with 4 basic ideas for single servings of roast chicken breast: this is the most "complicated" one, as you need to parboil the potatoes, but in the colder months of the year, who can really resist a roast potato? I know I can't. And I can't resist an absurdly simple and complete meal at the end of a crazy work day (or after a long walk in the crisp autumn air). Chicken cooked like this is tender and juicy, and the spices give a warm and tangy flavor that brightens something as plain-sounding as chicken and potatoes.

The quantities below serve one, but they are very easily doubled as needed. It's perfect for a simple and intimate dinner: my younger brother keeps this recipe up his sleeve to impress girls who eat at his place for the first time. What a rascal!

1 large handful of potatoes

1 heaped teaspoon tumeric

1 lemon, halved; one half juiced and zested, the other half thinly sliced

1 teaspoon cumin

1 pinch saffron

5 sprigs fresh cilantro, chopped

1 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, cut into matchsticks

1 chicken breast, bones and skin removed

Olive oil

Sea salt and ground pepper

Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1-inch chunks. Place them in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the potatoes have boiled a minute or so, drain them and set aside. In a large bowl, put the tumeric, lemon zest, cumin, saffron, cilantro and ginger. Add the lemon juice, potatoes and chicken to the bowl. Toss together with a splash of olive oil, some sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper (the potatoes will still be hot, so use salad tossers). Remove the chicken and put the potatoes in one layer in a Pyrex dish, top with slices from the last half of the lemon, and put the chicken on top. Drizzle with a bit more oil and cook for 25 to 30 minutes.

If you wish to vary the vegetables, I suggest substituting half the potatoes for other roots like carrots or turnips. Also, zesting lemons can be a very frustrating experience if one tries to use the small holes-side of a box grater. It's time-consuming and difficult to clean. I highly recommend acquiring a Microplane zester, which is infinitely more practical and precise. Put it over a bowl or clean cutting board and grate the lemon until you get to the white skin below the peel. Obviously zest the lemon before juicing it; doing it the other way around is not only frustrating but also doomed to fail.

Oh, and don't worry: more variants of the "Lazy-Ass Roast Chicken Breast" technique will appear on this blog soon enough. Who am I to deprive the world of delicious and easy recipes?

Gratin Dauphinois

Does any dish scream "French" more than the gratin dauphinois? It is one of those staples of French cuisine which brings to mind lovely bistro tables and accordion music. Rich and creamy potatoes covered in melted cheese; it doesn't get much better than that!

The recipe's name refers to the Dauphiné region in France, where this method for preparing potatoes originated. And as with any other so-called classics, there are about a million versions out there, varying with regions and personal taste. Of course, everyone is convicted that their version is the ultimate gratin dauphinois. I have tried a few, and I find that a balance of the creamy texture of the potatoes, strong taste of cheese and subtle seasoning is the goal one must aim for with this gratin. It is not meant to be the main course of a dinner, but a luxurious side-dish to a roasted or grilled meat (even if it will steal the spotlight if prepared properly), so it can't have an overwhelming taste. It must be just like Audrey Hepburn in "Funny Face": easily overlooked at first sight, but fallen madly in love with after a small taste. Yes, I just compared the divine Audrey to a potato gratin. I am a monster.

My point is that it does require quite a bit of preparation, so you might not want to serve it as a side to another dish that is laborious to prepare (unless you spend your days at home cooking, lucky you!). A lamb-roast is amazing with gratin dauphinois, because of the taste, and because it pretty much takes care of itself in the oven and won't have you fussing with a bunch of pans. I also like to serve it with some marinated fish or chicken (or lamb chops!), cooked in the grilling pan. Less is more in your marinade here! A bit of lemon juice, a handful of tarragon and thyme and some olive oil. Period. Forget heavy and sweet marinades here; the gratin is rich enough. A lovely pepper steak is the ultimate low-maintenance protein to serve as a main course with your gratin. It is a week night, so that's what I did.

The gratin dauphinois below is my favorite, found in the pages of Patricia Wells' "Bistro Cooking"; the spice of nutmeg and the robustness of Gruyère make for a really amazing blend of tastes. And of course, I just love potatoes. The cream and milk give them a great texture; they all but melt in your mouth… Note that it's totally worth it to go to a fromagerie to buy real Gruyère. The Swiss cheese you get in supermarkets is not bad, but there is something about the strength of Gruyère that will take this dish to another level. I used one from Fribourg, Neuchatel for the gratin pictured below, and I got the bang for my bucks.

3 pounds Russet potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced
2 cups whole milk
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 bay leaves
Freshly ground nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups freshly grated Gruyère cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with the milk and 2 cups of water. Add the garlic, salt and bay leaves. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally so that the potatoes do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring from time to time, until the potatoes are tender, but not falling apart, about 7 to 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer half of the potatoes in a large gratin dish. Sprinkle with the nutmeg, pepper, half the heavy cream and half the cheese. Cover with the remaining potatoes, and sprinkle again with nutmeg, pepper and add the remaining cream and cheese. Bake the gratin until crisp and golden on top, about 1 hour. Serve immediately.

Remember that as with most potato-dishes, this reheats like a charm, so grab the leftovers for your lunch the next day with a salad or a sandwich. To die for!