Teisen Nionod

Makes 6 servings (serving a crowd?)

2 lb potatoes
1 lb onions
5 oz butter
salt and pepper to taste
¾ cup whole milk

Special equipment

potato slicer
13 x 9 inch baking pan
foil
serving platter (optional)

Method

Peel the potatoes and slice paper thin on a mandolin or other grater. Store slices in cold water so they won't discolour as you work.

Peel and slice onions thinly.

Grease your pan. Line with a layer of potato slices, then a layer of onion slices. Season with salt, pepper, and butter. Keep layering ingredients until they're all used up, but make certain the top layer is potato and that you coat it with bits of butter. Pour the ¾ cup of milk all over the top. Cover with foil and bake for an hour at 400° F

While a formal presentation would require you to flip the final product onto a serving platter, brown the top under the broiler and, geez, garnish it too, we find it much easier just to serve the Teisen directly from the baking pan.

Notes

A traditional Welsh recipe for what is quite literally ‘onion cake,’ based on a recipe of Grigson's, this crisp-yet-soft potato dish is the perfect accompaniment to a joint of meat, and, in some households, is cooked as is a Yorkshire pudding, underneath the roasting joint, soaking up all the drippings (and, in which case, the milk would be omitted).

Suggestions

Some may prefer to use beef stock instead of milk, but we wanted to keep the dish vegetarian.

First served: Imbolc 1994
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Last modified: © December 2007