Julia Child’s Provençal Potato Gratin Recipe (2024)

Can you use canned tomatoes rather than raw tomatoes? Since there are only 2 of us that I cook for, it would be very nice if recipes were easy to cut in half. Could you suggest in the recipes how to make smaller portions?

Why NOT refrigerate ???

This dish is a classic, and I've made it (and several variations) for 40 years. I use white anchovies packed in olive oil, and I use some of the oil when making the anchovy paste. In season I use fresh herbes de Provence, but the dried version works very well the rest of the year. I never have to deal with leftovers ... because there aren't any.

Will this work equally well with canned tomatoes, now that tomato season is pretty much over?

Oh, my, but this is yummy! At least as I did it: followed the recipe as written, except for omitting the cheese. Instead, I balanced a rack on top of the gratin dish and placed some skin-on bone-in chicken pieces, seasoned, on top. As the gratin cooked, so did the chicken, and juices dripped down into the gratin... It was all luscious.

i substituted mashed capers for the anchovies, and that worked well. Gave it that South of France savor.

Two of us ate half of this one night. Then the next day I put the pan on the stovetop (having used a stovetop-safe dish), spread the remaining vegetables about and warmed them. I made four indentations in the hot liquidy vegetable mixture and cracked an egg into each one to poach. The result was every bit as good as the first night's version.

Refrigeration kills the flavor of tomatoes.

I substituted kalamata olives for the anchovies because I was serving it to vegetarian friends and it was extremely flavorful and delicious.

OK I cheated. Skipped the part of sautéing the onion, and mortering the anchovies etc. Simply sliced potatoes, onions, tomatoes thin. Olive oil in the bottom of a gratin dish, layer potatoes and onions, dash of salt , pepper and herbs de provence, top with sliced tomatoes, anchovies and basil oil, covered with alum foil, baked as directed and removed foil and topped with grated parmesan. Served with Socca (chickpea pancake). Delisch.

If one is baking in an enameled cast iron gratin, the "until all liquid at the bottom is absorbed" instruction is not useful. However, potatoes, like meat, resorb liquid when allowed to rest for ten or fifteen minutes. What doesn't resorb is oil, and there's too much in this recipe. Sautee the onions without it. Do not drizzle oil on the top. The oil in the anchovy paste will be enough.

Because then it will be too cold to enjoy when you eat it, and the cheese will have gone all gummy. If you reheat it after refrigerating, it will be good, but again the top cheesy layer will be adversely affected.
If you make it without the cheese to begin with, reheating works fine.

We made this with capers rather than anchovies, canned tomatoes and dried herbes de Provence--my husband LOVED it.

I strongly advise to first cook the potatoes halfway and then proceed according to the recipe. Its safer that way. Aloha from southern France

Delicious! Took others advice and substituted capers for the anchovies. Next time, I will make twice the amount of sauce and try it with roasted red pepper.

Simply delicious! A ray of sunshine on a cold winter's day. It's a bit labour-intensive, though. I added sliced yellow bell pepper to the onions and tomatoes, which turned out really nice. It does keep in the fridge for a few days and can be reheated, although the texture suffers a bit.

Not nearly as good as some of the other gratins listed on NYT Cooking, such as Potato Sorrel or Mushrooms and Greens gratins.

Speaking of using canned tomatoes, I generally don’t care for sliced tomatoes that are baked in a dish. It seems like tomatoes get “stringy” that way, which I basically find annoying. If I were to substitute diced tomatoes would that work?

This was delicious, I thought. I was short on anchovies and only used 2 oz worth, and that may be why I thought it needed more salt. The other thing I noticed was that all the liquid was never absorbed, even after the potatoes were cooked. (I did use Yukon Golds.) Maybe my proportions were off somehow. At any rate, I'll try making it again someday. My husband wasn't crazy about it, hence the 4 stars; I think the flavors might have been too subtle for his tastes.

This is definitely the best potato gratin recipe I have ever made. I was going to use canned tomatoes but ended buying fresh ones and they really made the recipe so very good. Took a while to make but so worth the effort. Had a bowl of this dish this morning for breakfast. What a winner!

Insanely good...yes, don't refrigerate this, just leave it out and have it for lunch the next day.

Not sure what I did wrong. Cooked for an hour and the potatoes still didn’t absorb enough or finish cooking. I check my oven temp regularly and baking times are usually correct, so it was odd. Thinking it was just an off batch of gold potatoes? The flavors were good once done of course but not something I’d want to serve to guests. If I made it again I might set the mandolin to slice them 1/16th and make more layers? Or else cook lower and slower with more olive oil?

Quite delicious and makes a lot! I made the version with olives as suggested in some notes and added tomato paste as tomatoes are not really in season now and I wanted to boost the flavor. I will make it again and add some additional cheese over the potato layers for a bit more flavor.

Salt and pepper the potatoes as you layer them.Let cool a little before serving Get all the seeds out.

I baked it for more than 1 1/2 hours and the potatoes still were not done enough. Flavor was rather bland. Not worth the effort.

For the question of why not to refrigerate, the oil separates from the rest of the dish into in a very unappealing goopy mess that you can't rescue. What you could do though is fridge it and then make mashed potatoes out of it to emulsify the oil back in. But since the oil was never emulsified in the first place, it will separate from everything else and sit on top of the cheese like a slick.

We really enjoyed this. The anchovy/garlic/thyme paste brings a depth unusual to a potato gratin. But i found that the temperature and timing both needed to be increased for the potatoes to cook thoroughly.

I finished the top layer with potatoes rather than the tomato onion mixture, and sprinkled Gruyère on top. Once it turned golden in the over, it looked very pretty.

I prepared as written, using a full tin of anchovies with its oil, and sprinkling a small amount of salt over each layer of potatoes. I used shredded Gruyère on top. It looked beautiful and tasted amazing. This is a keeper.