Potato & Bacon Bake
Potato & Bacon Bake
This is a South African traditional dish, it is delicious, highly recommended! The sauce is excellent. This is a light main dish and can be tailored with minced pork, sliced sausage, cubed chicken, or cubed ham instead of bacon. Serve with a salad and you have a great meal. Or serve as breakfast with a couple of eggs on the side. I made this on 5 Sep 2016 and took the step by step photos.
Equipment
- Oven
- Baking Pan
Ingredients
- 6-8 large potatoes, washed
- 2-3 cups bacon, chopped
- 1 medium onion, coarsly chopped
- 1 large shallot, coarsly chopped
- 1 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded
White Sauce
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 6 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 3 cups milk
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Boil potatoes in a large pot until just tender but still firm. Drain and set aside.
- Heat a pan on medium heat and fry bacon lightly, then add onion and shallot and cook for a few minutes until the onions are soft, remove from heat and set aside.
- Preheat your oven to 180° C (350° F). Grease a large baking dish with butter.
- For the sauce, melt butter in a medium, heavy-based saucepan. Add flour and stir over low heat for about 1 minute. Add milk and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until sauce is smooth and has thickened. Remove from heat and add seasoning. If the sauce is too thick, add a few tablespoons of milk at a time to thin the sauce a bit.
- Cut the potatoes into thick slices, remove skin if desired. Layer half the potatoes in the baking dish. Cover with half the bacon mixture and pour half the sauce over bacon mixture. Repeat layers with remaining potatoes, bacon mixture and sauce. Sprinkle the cheese over the top. Photo shows just before the sauce was added.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.
- Serve and enjoy.
Notes
The bacon or ham will cost between 100 and 200 Baht. Based on 200 Baht, for 8 servings, this comes to about 74 cents per serving. Excellent value.
Variants: Substitute bacon for minced pork, sliced sausages, cubed ham, even cubed chicken. Serve with a salad for a nice meal or for breakfast with eggs on the side.
So glad that you enjoyed it 😀 It’s one of my “go-to”s” as well. Very easy to adapt to individual taste 😉
The white sauce, key! I make some good scalloped potatoes, they do not even compare to this dish.
I made this on 5 Sep 2016, and I must say, this is wow! Excellent use of a nice white sauce. Easy to prepare as well. I used cubed ham and increased that to about 3 cups, and increased the cheese to 1 cup as well, changes made to the recipe to reflect my changes. This was delicious, my Thai wife gave it 2 thumbs up as well. This is on my regular schedule now, this is highly recommended and is on my Go-to list.