This is a really comforting dish with a flavoursome, creamy filling and a crunchy topping. Perfect if you have some mustard and stale bread to use up.
Ingredients
- 300g floury potatoes, thinly sliced
- 1 batch (600ml) frozen poached chicken meat and broth, defrosted
- 25g butter
- 25g plain flour
- 100ml half-fat crème fraîche
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard (we like Maille mustard)
- Bunch of fresh chives, snipped, plus 2 tbsp extra, to garnish
- 40g Cheshire or Caerphilly cheese, crumbled
- 40g fresh breadcrumbs
Method
- 1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan180°C/ gas 6. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and cook the potatoes for 6-8 minutes, until nearly cooked through. Drain well.
- 2. Make the sauce. Strain the broth from the chicken into a measuring jug. Set aside the chicken. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, until it forms a smooth paste. Add the broth, a little at a time, and simmer until you have a smooth, thickened sauce, stirring all the time.
- 3. Stir the crème fraîche and mustard into the sauce and heat for a few minutes. Add the chicken and chives and season to taste.
- 4. Spoon the mixture into a 1.5-litre gratin or ovenproof baking dish and arrange the potatoes on top. Sprinkle over the cheese and breadcrumbs and bake for 20 minutes, until the top is pale golden and the filling bubbling hot. Preheat the grill to high and grill the gratin for 5 minutes to crisp up the topping. Scatter with the extra chives to serve.
Nutritional info
Per serving: 770kcals, 31.1g fat (16.5g saturated), 71.1g protein, 54.9g carbs, 5.5g sugar, 2g salt
Chef's tip
If you want to make this chicken gratin to serve four, double up on all the ingredients except the broth, butter and plain flour, which you use to make the broth sauce in step 2 of this recipe.