20 January 2021

Gratin de poireaux au jambon

A few days ago I posted some pictures of a street market stand in Paris and in the foreground there was a pile of beautiful leeks — poireaux in French. That made me realize it had been a while since I had cooked and eaten leeks. Now is the season for them, so I bought some at the supermarket last week. Walt had a good idea about how we would cook them.

There are two sort of standard ways of preparing and serving leeks in French cooking. Or three, really, if you include leek and potato soup — soupe de poireaux et pommes de terre — which is delicious. The other two ways of serving leeks are as a salad — poireaux à la vinaigrette — or in a cheese sauce as a gratin — gratin de poireaux. In our case, we wanted make a gratin with leeks and ham similar to a gratin d'endives au jambon.

As it turned out, we made both the salad and the gratin. We had enough tender white sections of leeks that we could wrap four of them in ham and cook them in the cheese sauce. We also had enough shorter sections left over to make a salad. Either way, the trimmed leeks need to be either steamed or boiled first. I used a steamer. The leeks should be fork tender.

Roll each section of cooked leek in a slice of jambon de Paris ("boiled" or "Danish" ham). Make a cheese sauce. For four ham-wrapped leek sections, I made a béchamel ("white") sauce using 35 grams of butter (2½ Tbsp.) and 35 grams of flour (4 Tbsp.) — the quantities are approximate. Cook the flour in the butter for 3 or 3 minutes and then gradually add about two cups (50 milliliters) of milk or half-and-half, stirring constantly.

When the sauce has thickened and is silky smooth, stir in a good handful of grated cheese (cheddar or Swiss). Season the cheese sauce with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg. Put some sauce in the bottom of a baking dish, lay on the wrapped leeks, and pour the cheese sauce over them. Sprinkle on a little more grated cheese if you want. Bake the dish at 180ºC (350ºF) until the sauce is bubbling and the top surface is browned. Serve hot with good bread.

11 comments:

  1. Delicious! I keep meaning to make this so now I will!
    Sliced leeks are also good in a quiche/ tart, with bacon, cheese and mushrooms. We also use them a lot with chicken. A chicken, ham and leek pie is a favourite of the house! (Cooked sliced leeks, chunks of ham or gammon and bits of chicken in a savoury white sauce with a pastry lid.)

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  2. Exquisite! And next some apple tart.

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  3. What Jean suggests is akin to flamiche a Picardy specialty.
    I love leeks however they're cooked and served.

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  4. I love leeks too, prepared any way at all.

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  5. Comfort food for us to enjoy as we exhale after the past four years. The inauguration was the best I've ever seen. Gaga shined as did Amanda Gorman, just 22 years old.

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    1. We've been glued to the TV all day. All good, and so reassuring. Maybe the nightmare is over.

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    2. Glued here as well. I feel like I can breathe again.

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    3. Amanda Gorman was lovely, embodying so much hope in her artful poem.

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    4. Taking deep breaths again. We have a lot of repair work to do, but there's hope once again.
      I was just reading about how Doug Emhoff is getting pushback from less secure men for styling himself as "second gentleman" and thinking what a breath of fresh air they all are. I wore pearls today in honor of Madame Vice President.

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  6. Lots of deep breaths here as well!

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