Passover Potato Gratin

Passover is speedily upon us. I personally do not mind the culinary restrictions brought about by celebrating the Exodus: it is a fun time to be creative, eat colorful food, and ingest mammoth quantities of vegetables and unusual starches. For some, however, Passover is a time of woe, when all one’s favorite foods are forbidden. Doubly so for those who follow the Ashkenazi custom of not eating kitniyot – “wheat-like” items that include corn, rice, beans, and seeds. Which means … a lot of potato.

I personally could eat potatoes for three weeks straight without complaining, but that is just my Lithuanian ancestry saying hello. But I do realize that some people find potatoes “boring.” So the next three recipes, all for Passover, are easy and tasty ways to make potatoes.

This first recipe answered a challenge issued to me by a friend: could I do a potato gratin, with a rich and creamy béchamel sauce, for Passover? Béchamel sauce normally requires flour, which for non-matzah purposes is basically forbidden during Passover. Luckily, potato flour serves as a nice substitute, and you still get the creamy béchamel that blends with cheese to make a very decadent dish.

This dish might seem very “white-bread American.” However, béchamel, which is one of the “mother sauces” of French cooking, made its way into Jewish cooking during the 19^th century, when Ashkenazim and Sephardim alike used it to seem “classy.” German Jews put a “white sauce” on vegetables, and Jews across the Mediterranean under French influence used it for dairy-heavy egg- and vegetable-based casseroles. (If you want to learn more about the history of béchamel, I strongly urge you to read Anny Gaul’s post about béchamel in Egypt and Morocco!)

Most recipes have you melt the cheese into the béchamel, but I distribute it among the potatoes for “maximum coverage.” I use cheddar here, but any strong and sharp cheese should do. Enjoy!

Passover Potato Gratin

3lbs/1.3kg potatoes, peeled

8oz/225g cheddar cheese, shredded

4 tablespoons butter + extra to grease

4 tablespoons potato flour or potato starch

2 cups milk

Table salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C.
2. Slice the potatoes very thinly.
3. Grease a medium-to-large casserole pan with butter. Place half the potatoes in the pan, then half of the cheese on top. Then, place another layer of potatoes, and then another layer of cheese.
4. Make the Passover béchamel:
   1. In a small pan on a medium flame, melt the butter.
   2. When the butter is melted, add the potato flour, salt, and pepper. Whisk quickly so that the potato flour is browned.
   3. Slowly pour in the milk and whisk it slowly.
   4. Keep stirring with the whisk until the mixture is thick and starts to bubble. Then, turn off the heat.
5. Pour the Passover béchamel over the potatoes and cheese.
6. Bake for 60 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Serve hot.

Thank you to Dana Kline, Dov Fields, and Robbie Berg for serving as the User Acceptance Testing committee for this recipe.