Gratin de pommes de terre au fromage de chèvre

I've done a few posts about goat cheese (fromage de chèvre) recently. Goat cheese — and maybe it should more properly be called goats' milk cheese;  we don't say "cow cheese" after all — is a local specialty in the Loire Valley and around Saint-Aignan. Here's another post about using it in your cooking: potatoes au gratin with goat cheese and ham.

I had about 700 grams (1½ lbs.) of little firm-fleshed potatoes in the cold pantry that were just begging to be cooked and eaten. And I of course had several pieces of locally made goat cheese in the refrigerator. That seemed like a good ingredient match.

Here's the process: peel and cook the potatoes (in a steamer pot is a good way to do them) until they are done but still slightly firm. When they cool down, slice them into disks. Meanwhile, slice an onion or two and sauté the slices in butter or olive oil until they're softened and starting to turn golden brown. Set them aside.

Next, make a cream sauce by heating up about a cup of (cow's milk) cream and stirring three or four ounces (about 100 grams) of soft, fresh goat cheese into it until it is melted and, well, creamy. If you can get hard, dry goat cheese — it is hard like Parmesan cheese — grate enough of it to cover the top of the gratin you are about to assemble, and add a little bit, if there's enough, to the cream sauce for flavor.

Plan on a three-layer "casserole" or gratin. First put a thin layer of the cream sauce in the bottom of the baking dish to keep any potatoes from sticking to it as they bake. Arrange a third of the potatoes on top of the sauce and spoon a little more sauce over them. Lay on about half of the sautéed onions. Optionally, lay a piece of ham in with the onions (you could put in some cooked smoked-pork lardons or even diced or shredded chicken breast). Add salt only sparingly.

Add on another layer of potatoes, more sauce, more ham, and more onion. Finally, put on a third layer of potatoes and spoon the rest of the sauce creamy goat cheese sauce over those. Then sprinkle on as much grated goat cheese as you want.

You can sprinkle black pepper and/or paprika over the grated cheese, and drizzle on some olive oil. Bake the gratin in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes to finish cooking the potatoes — they ought to be tender — and to brown the grated cheese topping. (I wish I had mixed the paprika and black pepper into the grated cheese beforehand...).

It occurs to me that you could make the same gratin, but with a different flavor, using cream cheese and grated Parmesan.