Stilton and Bacon Gratin

This is a wonderfully rich and warming dish to eat on a cold day with weather battering the windows.

Ingredients

• 125g bacon lardons
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 25g butter
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
• 800 to 900g of peeled potatoes, thinly sliced
• 200g stilton cheese, cut into thin slices (don't worry if it crumbles into bits, that's fine)
• 450ml whole milk
• freshly grated pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 160 degrees if it's a fan oven.
2. Fry the bacon lardons in a dry frying pan over a medium heat until they start to brown, about 5 minutes.
3. Scoop the bacon out of the pan into a bowl, but leave behind as much of the grease as possible.
4. Add the butter to the bacon greese and let it melt.
5. Add the thinly sliced onion to the melted butter and fry over a medium heat until it starts to soften, about 5 minutes.
6. Stir the thinly sliced garlic into the onion mixture and then remove it from the heat.
7. Rub a bit of butter around the edge and bottom of a large ovenproof dish.
8. Put a layer of a third of the potatoes on the bottom of the ovenproof dish.
9. Layer half the bacon, half the stilton and half the onions on top of the first layer of potatoes.
10. Season with freshly grated black pepper. There's no need to add any salt - there will be plenty from the cheese and bacon.
11. Add a second layer of one third of the potatoes to the dish.
12. Sprinkle the remaining bacon, stilton and onions over the 2nd layer of potatoes and season with freshly grated black pepper.
13. Add a final layer of the remaining third of potatoes to the dish.
14. Pour the whole milk all over the top of the potatoes before seasoning with a final grating of black pepper.
15. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes.
16. Leave to stand for about 5 minutes before cutting into quarters and serving with some green vegetables like broccoli or a leafy salad.

Serves 4