This is a dish I cooked a lot at uni­ver­sity — it’s mostly pota­toes, which are cheap as chips (groan), and it’s a good warm­ing win­ter dish for a house-full of hun­gry peo­ple.  It can hap­pily be made with­out the chicken for veg­e­tar­i­ans or tight bud­gets.  Need­less to say, it was there that it was nick­named “Grated Dol­phin”.

Grated Dol­phin

Ingre­di­ents (to serve 4)

• 1 1/2 lb pota­toes, peeled and quartered
• 1 lb chicken
• 4 leeks, washed, trimmed and sliced
• 4 cloves gar­lic, crushed
• 3oz ched­dar cheese, grated
• 6 fl oz sin­gle cream
• 3 fl oz milk
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• but­ter

Method

1. Pre­heat the oven to 180 C.
2. Par­boil the pota­toes for 7–10 minutes.
3. Mean­while, cut the chicken into strips or small chunks, then fry until nearly done.
4. Add a knob of but­ter to the pan, then add the leeks and fry until golden and the chicken is prop­erly done.  Add the gar­lic at the end.
5. Put the chicken, leeks and gar­lic into the bot­tom of an oven dish.
6. Once the pota­toes are done, drain them and soak them in cold water until cool enough to touch.
7. Thinly slice the pota­toes, and lay them on top of the chicken mixture.
8. Mix together the milk, cream and nut­meg, then pour the mix­ture over the potatoes.
9. Sprin­kle the cheese over the top.
10. Bake until the pota­toes are ten­der (should take 45–60 minutes).