Zucchini Gratin

Reblogged from norecipes.com

 



The key to this recipe is to salt and squeeze the zucchini to get rid of the excess water before baking the gratin. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a soggy mess with bits of watery cheese in between. Along the same lines, I salt my zucchini almost universally. Whether you’re slicing and sautéing, or shredding and putting on pizza, removing the extra water keeps the zucchini from getting soggy and speeds up caramelization.


The other thing that sets my gratin apart from most is that I use a trick I learned while developing my mac and cheese recipe. Instead of making a béchamel, I just toss the shredded cheese in potato starch before adding the cream. This creates a rich cheesy sauce that’s faster and more foolproof than doing it the long way.

 

Ingredients

• 3 cups sliced zucchini sliced into 1/8 (about 4 zucchini)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Gruyere cheese shredded (1/2 cup)
• 2 teaspoons potato starch
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Instructions

1. put the zucchini in a colander, the sprinkle on the salt. Toss to coat evenly with salt and leave the zucchini in the colander set over a bowl for one hour. The salt not only seasons the zucchini it draws out extra water, preventing your gratin from getting soggy.
   
2. Add the Gruyere, potato starch and ground nutmeg to a bowl and toss to combine evenly.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).
4. Use your hands to squeeze out the excess water from the zucchini, then arrange 1/3 of them in a single layer in an oven safe dish with high sides.
   
5. Cover with 1/3 of the cheese.
6. Do two more alternating layers of zucchini and cheese, then pour the cream evenly over everything.
   
7. Place the gratin in the oven and bake until the zucchini is soft and the cheese on top has browned.

http://norecipes.com/blog/zucchini-gratin-recip/