Until 1 May I will be exploring France.

I holidayed in France a lot as a child. My Mum speaks excellent French. Our family had a touring caravan. As a result, I have many fond memories of camping in Brittany, eating langoustine and drinking Orangina.   

But as an adult I have hardly returned. My French is abysmal. I joke that when in France I speak fluent European. What ever sentence I start in French, it ends in Italian and may have taken in a little bit of Spanish on the way.  

I think there is plenty for me to explore in France. And what better place to start than the cheese filled dish of Tartiflette.

 I will start by saying I have no idea how I can have got to the age of 41 without eating this dish. It has all my favourite food groups – Cheese, bacon, fried potato, and white wine. Perfection on a plate.

Usually it seems to be eaten up a mountain, in winter, after skiing. I think eating it in spring, after a gentle socially distanced stroll to Waitrose is equally acceptable.

For the most part I used the recipe at the bottom of this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/feb/27/how-to-cook-perfect-tartiflette

The one difference is that I substituted the cream in the recipe with 100ml of whole milk as somehow the idea of all that cream as well as all that cheese was too much even for me.

Overall, it was not difficult to cook. And the result was super tasty – and super rich! You can see all of my cooking steps and the finished article in the photos below

I think I made a couple of mistakes/missteps.

-The recipe calls for waxy potatoes with the skin left on. I just used the potatoes that I happened to have in the fridge which were big floury ones that needed peeling. It was still tasty, but I would be interested to try it again with the “proper” potatoes.

– I probably could have baked it for a little longer. Looking at my photos compared to others on the internet my reblochon stayed quite intact. My excuse is that I was really hungry.

If I were going to make it again, I would change the recipe slightly.

– I would still use milk instead of cream as I do not think anything was lost by it not being extra rich with cream.

– I would roast the cubed potatoes on a baking tray to get some crispiness rather than sauté them. The sautéing was a little laborious (and used far too much butter!). But I think that speaks to my patience levels (super low) and my slightly duff lower back which was aching after this part.

I would love to hear what you think if anyone else has eaten this dish or tries it out at home over the next few months.