Leeks with ham

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 4 people, you will need:

• 1 80 g Comté cheese
• 2 4 leeks
• 3 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 1 litre milk
• 5 2 cloves garlic
• 6 4 slices ham
• 7 Salt
• 8 Pepper
• Total weight: 2,240 grams

Times:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
1 hour	40 min.	1 hour 40 min.

Step by step recipe

1	Grate 80 g Comté cheese and set aside.
2	Preparing leeks Cut off the base of 4 leeks, then cut the stem down to the beginning of the green leaves, the part often called the "white". Wash and dry the whites, and cut them to about the width of your gratin dish. Reserve the green leeks for later.
3	Cut the egg whites in 2 lengthwise and season with salt.
4	Pour 4 tablespoons olive oil into a large frying pan over medium heat, and when hot, drop in the leek halves.
5	Brown them on both sides over low heat, to taste, then remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
6	Leek béchamel sauce Prepare and chop the green leeks.
7	Pour 1 litre milk into a saucepan, add salt, leek greens and 2 cloves garlic, then cook over low heat for 10 minutes.
8	Pour the contents of the saucepan into a colander set over a salad bowl, and scoop out all the leek milk, pressing down on the leeks with the back of a tablespoon. Remove and discard the garlic cloves, and set aside the green of the cooked leeks, which you can use for another recipe.
9	Use the leek milk to make a béchamel sauce, then add half the grated Comté cheese and set aside.
10	Assembling the gratin Preheat your oven to 200°C (390°F). Place a layer of béchamel sauce in the bottom of your gratin dish.
11	Reconstitute a leek by assembling 2 halves.
12	Roll it in a slice of ham.
13	And place in the dish, doing the same for all the leeks.
14	Top with a generous dollop of béchamel sauce, then sprinkle with the remaining grated Comté cheese.
15	Bake in the oven for around 20 minutes, giving a little broil at the end if necessary to get a nice color on the top.
16	Enjoy warm, but not hot.

Remarks

For a quicker version, as in the original recipe, leave the leek whites unsplit and steam them whole.
You can use cheeses other than Comté, but preferably a hard one (Gruyère, Emmenthal, etc.) to brown the top.

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