The Aspiring Luddite

	I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Potamato Casserole
29 September 2011 [The final dish]

Potatoes and tomatoes. For the UNIX-y among us, this could be called [Pot,Tom]ato Casserole. The literal-minded might prefer a simple Potato-Tomato Casserole. (Or Tomato-Potato. Let's call the whole thing off.)

In any case, the match-up might sound strange at first, but upon consideration, the two get mixed up with some regularity. Gnocchi can have a tomato sauce. French fries are often dipped in ketchup. Tomato usually seems to play the supporting role, though - a sauce or condiment acting as second fiddle to potato's leading man. Not so here! They share the stage, in a virtual buddy-picture of a casserole - or have I stretched the metaphor too far?

Potamato Casserole

two large tomatoes (or equivalent)
five small potatoes (or equivalent)
one medium onion
3/4 cup heavy cream
salt
pepper
dried oregano
mozarella, 1/4 pound, perhaps a bit more less

Begin by slicing your vegetables. Use a mandolin or cuisinart, if you've got one or the other, on the potatoes and perhaps the onion. Paper thin would be overkill but thin is good, closer to an eighth of an inch than a quarter. I like to use a serrated knife on the tomatoes, cutting them to a similar thickness. If you think your mandolin or cuisinart would do the job, they by all means give it a go!

[Ready for the oven] With the veg sliced, begin the layering in your casserole dish of preference. Potato, then onion, then tomato. Finish with a layer of potato. Put a little salt and pepper on each onion layer. Sprinkle oregano on each tomato layer. I use a fairly small and deep dish, so I got five layers of potatoes and four layers of everything else. I find that giving the whole thing a good press in the center after each potato layer will both even things out and also give a little compression to help it all hold together. Otherwise it tends to bulge in the center.

Gently add the cream, cover and place in a 350F oven for 45 minutes. While it cooks, cut some slices of mozarella to your preferred thickness. After forty-five minutes, check the casserole to see if it's done - a knive should slide easily through the potatoes. If it is, top with the mozarella and slide under a low broiler for a few minutes to melt and brown the cheese - keep an eye on it, though, since the difference between brown and delicious and black and less so can be a matter of seconds. [With the cheese added]

The Aspiring Luddite