Published February 1, 2005.
In our experience, most scalloped potatoes recipes take over two hours and still produce unevenly cooked potatoes in a heavy, curdled sauce. To minimize the cooking time while winding up with layers of thinly sliced, tender potatoes, creamy sauce, and a nicely browned, cheesy crust, we didn’t use flour to thicken the sauce but instead relied on heavy cream lightened with a little whole milk. To cut cooking time in our scalloped potatoes recipe, we simmered the potatoes briefly in the cream and then dumped the whole mixture in a baking dish. Russet potatoes, thinly sliced, gave us neat layers with the best texture and flavor.
For the fastest and most consistent results, slice the potatoes in a food processor.
Dear Friend,
These days, it’s pretty easy to get free recipes on the Internet. I’m sure a search for “roast chicken recipe” will turn up thousands and thousands. But, as with so much on the web, you should tread lightly if you don’t know the source.
In America’s Test Kitchen, our motto is, “Recipes that Work,” and our mission is to be your trusted source for recipes that work every time you use them. Our test cooks spend their days obsessively testing recipes until they offer consistently great results. As we like to say here, “We make the mistakes so you don’t have to.”
CooksIllustrated.com is the only place you can find not only 20 years' worth of our foolproof recipes, but also objective ratings of cookware, and blind taste tests for hundreds of everyday supermarket ingredients (hey, without the proper ingredients and equipment you can still run into problems — no matter how good the recipe).
Let me make a simple, no-nonsense offer. Try out our website FREE for a 14-Day, No-Hassle Trial Offer. I’m pretty confident that CooksIllustrated.com will quickly become an invaluable resource for everything from quick, weeknight suppers to huge, holiday feasts for family and friends.
Thanks for your consideration,
Christopher Kimball
Founder and Publisher
