Potatoes au gratin and dauphinoise are two dishes loved for their potato base and creamy sauce, but there’s one big difference between the two.

Gratin uses slices of pre-cooked (usually boiled) potato cooked in cream and topped with cheese, while dauphinoise is made of thinly sliced (not pre-cooked) potatoes that cook in cream.

Fans of richer dishes may prefer gratin for its thick cream and cheesy topping, which is exactly what you can expect from Mary Berry’s delicious vegetable gratin.

Sharing a recipe from her BBC show Mary Berry Saves Christmas, the talented chef described the dish as “rich, creamy, colourful and full of flavour”.

Though intended for the festive period, Mary’s gratin is a dish that can be enjoyed any day of the week, perhaps with a roast dinner.

Vegetable gratin recipe

Ingredients

Butter, for greasing and frying

Four banana shallots, thinly sliced lengthways

350g/12oz carrots, peeled and sliced into thin batons

850g/1lb 14oz potatoes (such as Maris Piper, Rooster or King Edward), peeled

450ml/16fl oz vegetable stock

300ml/½ pint double cream

75g/2½oz Parmesan (or a similar vegetarian hard cheese), grated

One tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Salt and pepper

Method

Start by preheating to oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6, then butter a 1.7–2 litre/3–3½ pint wide ovenproof dish.

Take a frying pan over medium heat and melt a knob of butter into it. Add the chopped shallots and fry until soft (around five minutes).

Add the chopped carrots and stir with the shallots for 30 seconds then spoon the contents of the pan into the buttered dish.

Season generously with salted pepper then add the remaining ingredients to the dish, starting with a third of the stock and one-third of the cream.

Arrange half of the potatoes on top of the carrots and shallots then pour over another third of the stock and cream.

Push the vegetables down into the liquid then arrange the remaining potatoes in neat overlapping rows over the top.

Season with more salt and pepper then pour over the remaining stock and cream. Push everything down then sprinkle over the cheese before covering the dish with foil.

Bake the gratin for 30 minutes in the hot oven until the potatoes around the edge of the dish are soft. Remove the foil and cook for a further 25 minutes, or until all the vegetables are cooked through and the top is golden brown.

Serve fresh from the oven and scatter with parsley to garnish.