Gateau (potato cake) with mozzarella cheese and raw ham

• 30 minutes to prepare • 1 hour to cook • Serves 4

Dei Gattò

 

Potato gateau (called gattò in Italian) is a typical dish of Neapolitan cuisine, a true culinary icon every family has its own recipe of.

Although the term gateau means cake in French, it refers to a kind of flan in Italian.
Gateau was created as a dish for the wedding banquet of Queen Maria Carolina, the daughter of Maria Theresa Habsburg-Lorraine, in 1768.
The new queen introduced in the capital the French taste and the habit of employing "monsieurs", the royal chefs. These chefs created the special flan for the banquet.
Despite this, gateau is to be considered a true Neapolitan dish, created in Naples, using ingredients typical of Neapolitan cuisine, with the only exception of butter (which is more typical of Nordic cuisine).

Here are ingredients for a 4-serving recipe:

 

1 kg potatoes
100 g frozen green peas
50 g butter
100 g raw ham
100 g grated Parmesan cheese
125 g mozzarella
100 g bread crumbs
nutmeg
salt

1. Pour 1 l of water in a large pot and bring to boil. Meanwhile, wash and brush well the potatoes. As soon as the water boils, dip unpeeled potatoes in the pot, and go on with the cooking for about 15 minutes
2. About 5 minutes before potatoes are done, add frozen peas, too
3. Cut mozzarella into cubes and place it in a colander to drain
4. Cut the raw ham in small pieces, too
5. Drain potatoes and frozen peas. As soon as potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and run them through a food mill into a large bowl, as if you were making mashed potatoes
6. Add the butter, grated cheese, a pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon of nutmeg powder. Mix well with a spoon
7. Add frozen peas, raw ham, mozzarella and mix again
8. Preheat oven to 180°C
9. Grease and dust the baking pan with bread crumbs, then pour the potato cake into the pastry pan. Top with bread crumbs
10. Bake the cake at 180° for 45 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving

Nutrition Facts are detailed in the table below. Data is provided per serving.

Il gattò può farsi in varie maniere, cioè o farsi la dose del pane di spagna, versarla, o in una forma tonda di carta, o in una casseruola unta appena di butiro, e cuocere il detto gattò*

(Ippolito Cavalcanti Duca di Buonvicino, Cucina teorico-pratica in dialetto napoletano di Ippolito Cavalcanti Duca di Buonvicino, 1839)

*The gattò can be done according to different ways: you prepare the sponge cake, then you pour it, either in a round-shaped paper container, or in a pan greased with butter. Then you bake the aforementioned gattò