Cooking: a Jacques Pepin No-recipe Dish

What I’m noticing about Jacques Pepin’s cooking later on in his career and on his shows, especially on his Facebook and YouTube videos is his riffing on classic French cooking, resorting to dishes he ate in childhood that were economical and subbing out ingredients to what he already has on hand without making another trip to a store. I once watched, in utter fascination, him cooking this gratin of hard boiled eggs, béchamel, some grated Gruyere, some leftover ham, and sautéed Swiss chard and a couple of button mushrooms in olive oil and garlic. It looked delicious, and I aimed to try it.  However, the only Swiss chard I had left was the extra Swiss chard I had cooked with leeks, dill, parsley, green onion, and feta for a spanakopita.

No matter because WWJD (What Would Jacques Do?). I was gonna go with it and had already hard boiled eggs that morning. I also made some bechamel sauce. And so I spooned the greens into gratin dishes. One of the gratins had less bechamel as I forgot to spoon it over the greens too.

But I remembered for the larger gratin.

And then covered the hard boiled eggs with more béchamel sauce before sprinkling grated Gruyere and then popping into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Oh my! I now understand why Thomas Jefferson brought over his chef to France to learn how to make macaroni and cheese. Only this casserole had no pasta in it. It was divine. I can see myself making multiple variations of this gratin. Next up will be a crab mac 'n cheese and a spinach and mushroom and hard boiled eggs one too. The magic is in the béchamel with that hint of nutmeg and the sweet nuttiness of the Gruyere cheese.