Morbiflette is a potato gratin on steroids! The Morbier cheese is melted on top of a creamy, winy and aromatic bed of potatoes. A pure delight for cheese lovers!
Morbiflette is a tartiflette (potato covered with cream, fresh bacon bits, onions and reblochon cheese) but with Morbier cheese instead! If you are, like me, a cheese lover… This is the dish for you! Morbier isn’t a comparable cheese except maybe to Raclette cheese for its texture. Although its taste is bolder and brings in a lovely mineral tang no other cheese has. You’ll see, this cheesy dish is so simple and addictive… one bite is just never enough.
Morbier Cheese Origin
The protagonist is Morbier, a semi-soft cow cheese with a layer of vegetable rye in the middle. Two decades ago, the cheese was created by the cowherds from a calm land in the East part of France called the Franche-Comté region. This is where they make those big wheels of “Conté cheese”. If there were any leftovers of milk, they would fill up half a mould, then add ash to it. In order to prevent the bugs from touching it overnight.
The following day they would fill the other half of the mould with fresh milk and then cure it for 45 days. The cheesemongers would keep these particular cheeses for themselves. Wouldn’t have been well seen to sell it to ordinary people and even less for the aristocrats. Today the roles got reversed…Morbier is seen as a “highly gastronomic cheese”! Nowadays the cheese still has its distinct hash layer although it’s purely decorative.
Alternative Ingredients
The traditional recipe contains bacon bits, which you fry with the onions at first. If you fancy bacon, go ahead! Also, you could use lovely small pieces of sausage.
To Serve
Here, it’s served in a 20 cm clay pot, a full main meal. In France, they eat Morbiflette or tartiflette as an appetizer (10 cm pots) next to a green salad. It pairs perfectly with caperberries, olives, pickles, marinated onions, etc.
Other Gratin Meals
- SWISS BROCCOLI GRATIN
- DOUBLE ONION SOUP
- CAULIFLOWER MORNAY
Morbiflette
Ingredients
- 4 slices of Morbier cheese (3mm thick)
- 6 potatoes
- 2 onions (finely sliced)
- 45 ml heavy cream
- 3 tbsp white wine (*optional)
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp thyme (fresh branch would be ideal)
- salt and pepper (to taste)
Instructions
- Boil the potatoes in water until tender. (I keep the skin and peel after but you can just take it off before.)
- In a pan, melt the butter, add the onion, wine, thyme, salt and pepper, reduce the onion, medium-high heat, until soft.
- *optional: at this point, if you want the fresh bacon bits, make them, high heat, in the pan.
- Cut thick slices of the cooked potatoes, add the onion, cream, *fresh bacon bits, nutmeg, salt, pepper and the famous slices of Morbier on top.
- Grill in the oven at 210°C (350F) for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
1 Comment
Pingback: Morbier Cheese - Food History