The potato gateauor rather, the Neapolitan potato cat, it can be defined as a real savory pie with a stringy heart and a crispy gratin crust. It can do by single dish, but also from side dish or appetizer: in any case, it will make you lick your mustache. But what is its history and how is potato getaeu prepared?

Let's jump in 1700 and try the traditional potato gateau recipe.

From gateau to gattò: the history of potato gattò

His first appearance on the Neapolitan scene dates back to 1768, when the queen Maria Carolina of Habsburg, wife of Ferdinand I of Bourbon, called the French cooks in Kingdom of Naples to be able to enjoy their delicacies. The so-called monsieurs, professional chefs from France, were nicknamed monzù. Similarly, the Neapolitans took the gateau (which in French means really cake) and turned it into cat: the French potato pie that originally contained a stringy gruyere heart, was instead stuffed with milk cream is Neapolitan salami or baked ham (or both together).

Gateau of potatoes: recipe of the Neapolitan potato gattò

How is potato gateau made? Here is a recipe for gattò, just like you do in Naples, and some variations of preparation.

Ingredients

1 kg potatoes
300 g mozzarella
150 g Neapolitan salami
50 g grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
butter
milk
breadcrumbs
salt
pepper

Method

To prepare the potato gateau, first boil the potatoes in boiling water with the whole peelin this way they will not absorb too much water. Furthermore, once ready, it will be very easy to peel them.
Pass the boiled and peeled potatoes in the potato masher and collect them in a bowl.

Add a few tablespoons of milk to make the dough more creamy and add the eggs, parmesan, salt, pepper. Start mixing all the ingredients, add the diced salami and mozzarella and continue stirring until a compact mixture is obtained.

Butter a baking mold and sprinkle abundantly with breadcrumbs. Pour the mixture into the mold, level it and sprinkle the surface with other breadcrumbs, parmesan and a few flakes of butter.

Bake at 180 ° C in a preheated oven for about 30 minutes, until it is ready well gratinated. Remove from the oven and serve it still hot!

Gateau of potatoes: advice

The potato gattò has many different recipes that have been handed down in every family: you can change the recipe of the potato gateau according to your taste and fill it with any salami or cheese you have in the refrigerator. Campania is certainly the most popular headcheese Neapolitan, the scamorza and the smoked provola, for a stronger flavor.

Which potatoes to use to make the perfect potato cat? The advice is to use old potatoes yellow paste to minimize the presence of starch. If the potatoes turn out too much mealy, you can add more milk to the mixture, but there are also those who enrich it with abundant butter.

Among the "theories" on the perfect potato gattò, there is also the one concerningassembly. Some mix all the ingredients together, distributing cheese and salami evenly. Others prefer to proceed layered: half of the dough is poured on the bottom of the pan and well leveled, then a central layer is created with the mozzarella, salami or cooked ham (and sometimes even the hard-boiled eggs), finally the last with the last layer of potatoes. The filling will therefore be found only one hundred.