Hachis Parmentier
Ingredients for 4 persons
For the mashed potatoes:
800 g floury potatoes
1 large sweet potato
300 ml milk
30 g butter
1 clove of garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 pinches of freshly ground nutmeg
For the minced meat:
1 slice of stale white bread
200 ml milk
1 onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, roughly grated
120 g celeriac, roughly grated
Approx. 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
600 g mixed minced meat
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 pinches of cinnamon powder
2 tbsp TOMAMI #2 or TOMAMI Bayern (formerly Vegami)
30 g cold butter, finely diced
70 g grated Gruyère or Comté
INSTRUCTIONS
Peel and dice the potatoes and sweet potatoes and cook in salted water until soft. Pour off the water, pass the potatoes and sweet potatoes through a food mill or use a potato masher to make a puree. Heat the milk, butter, garlic, salt, pepper and nutmeg in a small saucepan, then stir the mixture into the puree.
For the minced meat, preheat the oven to 220° C (convection 200 °C). Soak the bread slice in milk. Sauté the onion, carrots and celeriac over a moderate heat in the rapeseed oil for five minutes. Increase the heat, add the minced meat. Fry for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Squeeze out the bread a little with your hands and mix it with the minced meat using a fork. Season the minced meat mixture with salt, pepper, parsley, thyme and cinnamon and with TOMAMI or TOMAMI Bayern (formerly Vegami).
Grease an ovenproof dish with a little butter. Layer half of the mashed potatoes, then the minced meat then the other half of the mashed potatoes; sprinkle with cheese. Spread
chunks of butter on top and bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 30 minutes until the surface has turned a golden brown colour.
NOTE
Strictly speaking, sweet potatoes do not belong in the Hachis Parmentier original recipe. And also cinnamon is more reminiscent of an English shepherd’s pie. However, I like the warm note of cinnamon in this rustic dish, and I almost always mix sweet potatoes with mashed potatoes anyway.
TOMAMI rounds off this classic French country kitchen recipe perfectly. And furthermore it is ideal dish for cold daysn.