The last meal... tartiflette

Having fallen of both the paleo and exercise wagon in November and December I am coming at it with a new zeal now and we are kicking off the year with a Whole 30. 

I’m relatively new to this way of eating having completed a Whole 30 in July last year and then kept about 80% paleo (with dairy). I started crossfit at about the same time, and was managing an average of three classes a week with some running, swimming and yoga thrown in until this healthful existence was derailed by a family visit at the end of October.  When one falls off the wagon at that time of year it doesn’t seem worth restarting everything, what with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up…

The result is not pretty; but rather than share my ‘before photo’ with you, at the risk of putting you off the thought of food, or the numbers from this morning’s weigh-in, which frankly put me off the thought of food, I thought I’d share a recipe which epitomises how we’ve been eating for the past couple of months and which we cooked last night as our final pre-Whole 30 meal. As long as you’re doing dairy and cooking with alcohol the recipe is actually relatively paleo though as the main ingredient is white potatoes it’s not something I’d eat often*. That makes it a bad choice for a pre-Whole 30 meal, but one of the other key ingredients is reblochon which we can’t get in Dubai so had bought at a market in Chamonix the week before and brought all the way home, the reblochon could not possibly sit in the fridge for the next 30 days without causing a public health crisis and so tartiflette it was.

Tartiflette

(serves six, allow about one potato per person)

• 6 medium potatoes peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
• 2 onions roughly chopped (though I’m very lazy and normally but the pre-chopped ones which are finely diced)
• 300g smoked lardons
• 1 reblochon cheese cut in two to give two full circles of cheese each with a rind side and a gooey side (you can substitute camembert if you can’t get reblochon)
• glass of white wine
• 100ml crème fraiche (I used Russian sour cream last night as I couldn’t get the crème fraiche, there were no complaints)

1. Preheat the oven to about 200 degrees Celsius
2. Par boil the potatoes until softened at the edges
3. Fry the lardons, no extra oil needed, when they are nearly cooked add the onions and continue frying until they are starting to brown
4. Drain the potatoes and add the cooked bacon and onion mixture to the pan
5. Stir in the white wine and crème fraiche and pour the whole mixture into an ovenproof dish
6. Put the reblochon (gooey side down) on the top and cover with tinfoil
7. Bake for 45 minutes with the tinfoil on and an additional 15 minutes with the tinfoil off. If you like you can remove the cheese rinds (keep them – they’re delicious!) and flash under the grill for five minutes at the end. At any rate, remove the rinds before serving

You could serve with a side salad. Last night I did a quick starter of pate and charcuterie and asked our dinner guest to bring an appropriately French dessert which she did magnificently!

* In its defence it comes from the French Alps where all the skiing, hiking and cold air make all those carbs seem so much more justified