Back in the Fifties, Campbell's cream of mushroom soup was a kitchen staple as a shortcut for folks unwilling to make a cream/white sauce. You couldn't hardly make a casserole without it. My mother used it (to good effect, I have to say) in her signature scalloped potatoes. And back in high school, I made it on several occasions to take to John's house when the family was having a cookout. Everyone loved it.
But I've been determined to reproduce the great flavor without the mushroom soup and the canned mushrooms. At last I can cry Success! (We had it with barbecued chicken, kind of a perfect pairing.)
Scalloped
Potatoes w mushrooms and cheese for 6
12 (more or less) red
potatoes sliced thinnish (¼ inch)
2-3 onions
sliced
Mushrooms—1
cup or more. Sliced
Butter, salt
and pepper, oregano, garlic granules
Flour
3 c milk (or ½ and ½ diluted)
Heavy cream
Grated
parmesan and Havarti (or mozzarella) -- about 2 cups
Saute onions
and mushrooms in butter. Remove.
Make cream
sauce with 4 TB butter and 3TB flour—add 3 cups milk (or diluted half and half. ) Cook till thickened, Season w salt and pepper and garlic granules
In buttered
casserole, make a layer of potato slices, top with sauteed onions and
mushrooms. Cover with 2/3 of cheeses and sprinkle heavily with dried oregano.
Pour on half the cream sauce. Cover with the rest of the potatoes. Pour on
remaining cream sauce. Add remaining cheese.
IF the
potatoes are not covered with the sauce, add heavy cream.
Bake at 350
about an hour and a half.
