I wanted to make a quiche. I have potatoes and spinach. There's even some leftover Grilled Salmon if I want to get fancy with it. Although I only have 3 eggs and 0 milk. So, I debated about making a half batch (ordinarily I use 6 eggs) or perhaps doing potatoes au gratin. But that still requires some kind of dairy that is in liquid form. I have Greek yogurt, which I do like to use instead of milk or cream in a lot of recipes. Greek yogurt, as versatile and amazing as it might be, isn't exactly my go-to for a gratin, though! So, after disregarding the notion of potatoes by themselves in French fry form, I've decided to make a spinach potato bake.
What exactly is the difference between potatoes au gratin, quiche, and a bake? The subtlety I don't entirely have the energy to get into right now. But sufficive to say: not a whole lot! It also dawned on me about halfway through making this recipe is that it's essentially also a spinach artichoke dip with potatoes....
Although, if you must know:
Potatoes au Gratin: thinly sliced potatoes, often with milk, cream, and/or eggs, and a crust of cheese or buttered bread crumbs, baked; French
Potato Quiche: thinly sliced potatoes with milk or cream and eggs, with or without a pastry crust and cheese, baked; French
Scalloped Potatoes: Potatoes au Gratin without cheese crust, baked; French, English
Potato Bake (Jacket, Funeral Potatoes, Cheesy Potatoes): virtually any thinly sliced potato dish that is not encompassed by any other potato dish, oftentimes with cheese, sour cream, gravy, beans, and/or meat; demonstrably not French
Potato Spinach Dip: thinly sliced potatoes with spinach and dairy; only in America
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Variations of Spinach Potato Bake
I don't always make potato bakes. This is kind of an experiment in what I can do with fresh produce and copious amounts of cheese without making a potato salad. Not that I don't enjoy a potato salad! But, when it comes to salads that I want to melt cheese onto? That's not exactly my first thought. What this really resembles the most is a crustless quiche. Which I am quite fond of making quite a bit because quiche is delicious.
Grease a small baking dish and line with a layer of sliced potatoes.You want them to be touching enough to cover the bottom of the dish, but not directly stacked on top of one another so that they still cook evenly.
In a small bowl, mix together spinach, shallots, garlic, Greek yogurt, eggs, and a dash of salt and pepper. Spread evenly across the top of the sliced potatoes in the baking dish.
Top with another layer of potatoes.
Grate gruyère over the potatoes and another dash of salt and pepper.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cheese begins to brown and the potatoes have cooked throughout.
This Page Contains Edited Images
As a general rule, I don't like to edit my images and I am firmly against alteration of images in food blogs. It's not something that we generally think about when it comes to recipes. But food styling, editing, alteration, and even faking entirely is just as rampant a problem in the recipe realm as anything else! Cooking is a very visual art and you can tell when a lot of foods are cooked based on the color. So, when this is altered and you can't use the coloration as a gauge, it makes it quite difficult to follow some recipes. I have an entire article about Food Styling and Unrealistic Expectations of Recipes.
Because of this, I try very hard not to alter any of my photos. I like to take photos with natural sunlight during the day. Ordinarily this is very true to color and I don't edit the photos at all. However, since my place is very warm with a lot of yellow lighting, sometimes my camera overcompensates and ends up with an unnatural blue tone. In the following images on this page, I adjusted the levels and hue to try and make this more true to color. In the interest of transparency, these are the before and after photos.
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