This is one of my mum’s specialities, which she adapted from a Simon Hopkinson recipe. Its a pretty permanent fixture for any roast dinner we have, and is one of my all-time favourite side dishes. The mint adds a freshness to the cream which stops it from being overwhelmingly rich, but it is still a fairly decadent dish. I feel you can probably get away with using a little less cream if you substituted it with a bit of vegetable stock, but where is the fun in that?
Serves 4 as a side dish
Ingredients:
- 5 leeks
- 200ml cream
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
- Butter for greasing
Method
- Trim the leeks, cutting off the ends and most of the green part, leaving an inch or two of green where it turns from white.
- Cut into rings of about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thickness.
- Cook for the leeks for 3-4 minutes in boiling salted water.
- Meanwhile cook the cream in another saucepan until reduced by 1/3.
- Spread the leeks out in a greased gratin dish.
- Pour over the cream, and sprinkle with the garlic and mint.
- Season and bake for 30-40 minutes at 180.
yumm looks great! it is nice to see recipes that utilize undervalued veg like leeks! I think your mom way onto something!
Yeah, it must run in the family, I am a huge leek fan too, I use them in everything. I used to live in the Netherlands, and they are a really popular veg there.
Oh yum!