Category: potatoes

Categories
potatoes

sage and onion potato layer cake

I’m always on the lookout for a new potato recipe, and this one ticks all the boxes: crispy, savoury, tender… delicious!

Take the concept of a pommes maxim and cross it with a chip and you get this crunchy and tasty treat that makes a great alternative to a roast potato.

Bake potato slices, let them cool, chop it up and turn it sideways. It’s that simple. And you can adjust the seasonings to get the flavour you want.

Inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Print

sage and onion potato layer cake

A crunchy delicious potato treat
Course Side Dish
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours 30 minutes
Resting 6 hours
Total Time 8 hours 45 minutes
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  • 1 kg potatoes floury like Maris Piper or King Edward
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon dried sage
  • olive oil
  • 25 g butter

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 180°C.
  • Peel and finely slice your potatoes to about 3mm thick using good knife skills or a kitchen gadget like a mandoline. Toss the slices in olive oil, onion powder and sage and season generously.
  • Line an oven safe pan or casserole dish with baking paper and tumble the slices in. Shuffle them around so they are roughly flat and wrap with foil. Bake for an 60-90 mins until knife tender. Allow to cool to room temp and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight - this makes the potatoes stick together.
  • The next day put the oven back on to 180C. Invert the cake on to a chopping board and slice into long pieces about 3 cm thick. Butter the pan generously. Wedge these slices back into the pan cut side up so you are faced with lots of layers. Bake until golden and crisp, sprinkle with Maldon salt and serve.

Video

Notes

Swap out the sage and onion for whatever you like: paprika, garlic, chilli, cumin, rosemary, thyme would all work here.
Categories
cream potatoes

marco pierre white’s gratin dauphinoise

I’ve been making Marco Pierre White recipes, again from the BBC Maestro masterclass. This time tackling his potato dauphinoise.

I’ve talked about potato dauphinoise many times on this blog – many times – so I’m always up for trying it another way, especially when it comes from as prestigious a chef as Marco.

Very simple – peel and slice potatoes, add cream, garlic, salt and pepper and nutmeg if you like, a little cheese, bake for 80 minutes.

I tried his recipe out – video below – and if I’m honest… I prefer my way of cooking it. I learned from the brilliant chef Jon Jones to simmer the potatoes in the garlicky cream first which means you can control the seasoning and drop the cooking time a little too. This way you can’t tell how it will taste until serving.

Print

marco pierre white's gratin dauphinoise

Course Side Dish
Cuisine French
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours 20 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 40 minutes
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  • 1 kg waxy potatoes peeled and thinly sliced
  • 500 ml double cream
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • nutmeg
  • 100 g hard cheese I used Comté

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 120°C.
  • Combine the cream, salt, pepper, garlic and a few rasps of nutmeg. Dump in the potato slices.
  • Arrange the potato slices in a casserole dish, ladling on cream mix as you go. Finish with cheese and cover with buttered tin foil. Bake in the oven for 60 minutes, remove the foil then bake for 20 minutes more until there is no resistance when prodded with a knife.

Video

Categories
butter food potatoes

marco pierre white’s fondant potatoes

I’ve been browsing the BBC Maestro series; a selection of masterclasses from famous experts in their field. Filmmaking with Edgar Wright, photography with Rankin and much more besides. What caught my eye was the series of food classes with Marco Pierre White. I thought I’d try Marco Pierre White’s fondant potatoes.

Marco has a shaman-like quality in this series: wise and patient, imparting gems from his vast experience in a lifetime of kitchens. It’s serious and verging on pretentious but the knowledge he is dropping is absolute gold.

Even with this basic recipe – just potatoes, butter, water and salt – is a penitent affair clocking at over 7 minutes deliberately telling you to take your time.

I made it once and it was fine, but I’d gauged the pan wrong and it was far too large so the potatoes cooked through before they had coloured. Working on a smaller pan with less potatoes meant I could control it much more easily and they coloured a treat.

The potatoes were good – but really you’re eating about 100g butter in each bite so I’m not surprised. But they toed the line between boiled potatoes and roasted potatoes to a point where I was conflicted it wasn’t either of them. So I don’t love it, but it was fascinating. In fact it gave me an idea for two more potato recipes – including an improvement on my master recipe for roast potatoes! – so I’ll take getting inspired as a win. Probably what Marco intended anyway?

You can browse the BBC Maestro site for yourself here

https://www.bbcmaestro.com/courses

This article is not sponsored, though I note the week I publish this it’s 40% off.

Print

marco pierre white's fondant potatoes

An indulgent and rich side dish.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine French
Keyword pommes fondant
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Resting time 1 hour
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  • 1 kg new potatoes peeled
  • 250 g butter keep the butter paper
  • Maldon salt

Instructions

  • Peel the potatoes, and cut off the tops and bottoms to give a flat surface.
  • Cut the butter into 1cm slices and lay in a frying pan. Lay the potatoes on top of the butter and season with salt.
  • Pour in enough water to so that it’s just below the surface of the potatoes. Open up the butter paper and lay on the potatoes.
  • Place the pan on the hob and bring to the boil. Simmer the potatoes gently in the butter and water.
  • Let the potatoes simmer hard in the butter until they are evenly and deeply browned on one side and then flip them. Season with more salt.
  • Once cooked through remove them from the heat and cover in a double layer of cling film. Leave the potatoes off the heat to rest in the butter for about an hour.
  • Finish by brushing the potatoes with a little of their own butter juice, then check if they need more salt.

Video

Categories
food potatoes salt

brined baked potato

If someone comes at me telling me they’ve found the perfect potato recipe, I am all ears. So when I read that America’s Test Kitchen have defined the perfect jacket “baked” potato I will definitely give it a try. Their solution? Well it’s a… brine solution.

I love brining meat – there is no better way to treat poultry – but on a potato? Turns out it’s not true brining but giving it a little bath in salt water.

You know how potatoes can get ‘leathery’ when you bake them too long? And the skin is really thick? Baking them in a really hot  oven prevents this ‘pellicle’ from forming underneath the peel. The salty water helps form a tasty layer and all of it makes the skin super tasty.

A pellicle is a thin, tacky layer that forms on the surface of certain foods when they are exposed to air. In the context of cooking, a pellicle is most commonly associated with smoking fish or meat, where it is desirable to develop a pellicle on the surface of the food before smoking it.

When it comes to baked potatoes, a pellicle can form on the surface of the potato skin as it bakes. This can happen when the potato is left uncovered or not wrapped tightly in foil, allowing the surface of the potato to dry out slightly and form a thin, dry layer. Some people believe that developing a pellicle on the potato skin can help make it crispier, while others prefer to keep the potato moist by wrapping it in foil or covering it with a lid while it bakes.

The formation of a pellicle is not a necessary or essential step in baking a potato. Whether or not a pellicle forms on the potato skin is largely a matter of personal preference, and there are many different ways to bake a potato to achieve different textures and flavours.

Original recipe here

Print

brined baked potatoes

An easy but tasty way to cook jacket potatoes.
Course Main Course
Servings 2 people

Equipment

  • probe thermometer

Ingredients

  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 standard baking potatoes about 10cm in diameter
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 230°C. Dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in 100ml water in a large bowl. Toss the potatoes for about 30 seconds to coat in the brine. Put onto a rack over a baking tray lined with foil and bake in the middle of the oven. Bake until the centre of the largest potato registers 100°C. This will take 45 minutes to 1 hour.
  • Remove potatoes from oven and brush with butter. Return the potatoes to oven and continue to bake for a further 10 minutes to develop a shiny crust.
  • Remove potatoes from oven and serve immediately.
Exit mobile version