The hachis Parmentier is a gratin dish made with mashed potatoes and ground beef. This traditional French dish was born in Paris, and tradition has it that its name is due to the pharmacist Antoine Parmentier, who proposed it to Louis XVI, in the belief that the tuber, or rather potato, would be an effective remedy against famine.
When I was a child, I did not like this dish at all, because in a "hachis" [ground] (term that refers to the fact that the ingredients are ground), I could not really see what I was eating... Today, however, like many of my Parisian friends, I am in love with this dish, which after all has also found its noble origins in the many breweries of the capital that propose it. Here is my recipe:
Ingredients (for 4 peoples)
- 1 kg of potatoes
- 1 onion
- 50 g of butter or margarine
- about 300 g of leftover meat already cooked
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 glasses of milk
- 50 g of grated gruyère or breadcrumbs
- Salt and pepper
- 1 teaspoon of water to add to the onion to avoid burning it.
Preparation:
- Peel the potatoes, and cook in boiling water for 25-30 minutes.
- Chop the onion and brown it in a pan over a very low flame for 10 minutes, adding a knob of butter or margarine.
- Chop the meat and garlic, and put the chopped in the pan, cooking it for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper. Continue to cook for 5 minutes.
Realization:
- Turn on the lower part of the oven.
- Crush the potatoes and add, with the help of a wooden spoon, first 20 g of butter (or margarine), then the boiling milk, salt and pepper.
- Butter a baking dish and arrange half the mashed potatoes, the minced meat, then cover with the remaining mash.
- Sprinkle with grated gruyère cheese or breadcrumbs, adding a few flakes of butter (or margarine). Sauté in the upper part of the oven (thermostat 7/8) for about 15 minutes.
My opinion:
The hachis Parmentier can be an appetizer, if it is prepared with a reduced amount of meat or mashed potatoes. I advise you to prepare it by respecting roughly the quantity of ingredients indicated here. It can be considered, in principle, a real single dish: a potage to start, a salad, and - to conclude - a cheese or a fruit.
