Category: potatoes

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bacon brussels sprouts chicken cream food potatoes red onion

parmesan chicken with potato and sprout gratin

crispy parmesan chicken with sprout gratin

Yes! It’s sprout season again. Please don’t just boil them and leave them alone, there’s so much more to the little farty ball. Like here, a Brussels Sprout gratin baked with potatoes and cream for a great side dish.

There’s a video version of the gratin on my YouTube channel here:

I was chuffed with how everything turned out save for one flaw. To quote Michel Roux Jr “where’s the sauce?!” It needed a meaty gravy just to lend a little more moisture. But beyond that, it was dead good. A sprout is for Winter, not just Christmas.

Want more Brussels Sprout recipes? My Christmas dinner isn’t complete without sprouts and chestnuts, and you must check out my legendary sproutotto.

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parmesan chicken with potato and sprout gratin

Course Side Dish
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 500 g potatoes
  • 250 g Brussels Sprouts
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • 1 red onion
  • 4 rashers smoked streaky bacon
  • 150 ml single cream
  • teaspoon wholegrain mustard heaped
  • 2 skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 2 handfuls panko breadcrumbs
  • 1 handful parmesan finely grated

Instructions

  • Get a large pan of water on to boil and preheat the oven to 200C.
  • Use a food processor to thinly slice the potatoes, and add them to the water with the stock cube. After 5 minutes pass the Brussels through the processor too and add to the water.
  • Heat a casserole dish over a medium heat. Thinly slice the onion and bacon and fry in a little oil in the dish until starting to colour. After the sprouts and potatoes have had 3 or 4 more minutes drain and add to the casserole dish. Stir well, season, pour in the cream, stir in the mustard and then transfer to the oven to cook uncovered for 15 minutes, until golden on top.
  • Meanwhile heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Bash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin until thin and season. Dust lightly in flour, roll in beaten egg and then in the parmesan and breadcrumbs. Fry in shallow oil on both sides until golden. To be sure use a probe thermometer checking it reaches at least 65C inside. Serve on top of the gratin.
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food potatoes

why i like potatoes so much

You may have noticed, but I rather like potatoes. I’m intrigued by the characteristics of different varieties. I like that the flavour can be earthy yet light. That there are great recipes for all seasons. That it’s the backbone of so many Western meals. And it’s in the roast potato that I get most intrigued. That balance between crisp and soft, with the perfect surface for taking on gravy. Now that reminds me…

You probably have some childhood routines in your house that you assume everybody has. It’s not until you get older it dawns on you not every family has these same rituals. And not just the special occasions, but also the ordinary. For me, I was amazed to learn not everybody had a roast dinner every Sunday. But we did.

I can’t remember a single Sunday growing up where there wasn’t a joint of meat on the table – served at 2pm every week – whether it was pork, chicken, lamb or beef; always served with piles of vegetables; always Yorkshire puddings (oh yes, not just for beef) and pints of Bisto gravy. And of course, roast potatoes. And my Mum did the whole lot. I helped her peel the carrots and mix the Yorkshire pudding batter, but everything else was her job and that’s the way it was. From buying the ingredients, to spending most of Sunday morning with The Waltons on in the background getting everything timed to perfection. Every week the meat dripping was saved in a small blue piece of Tupperware ready to go on next week’s potatoes. Well, it was saved if it could be hidden well enough from my Dad trying to spread it on bread. And Sunday night also meant there was a foil-covered plate in the fridge crinkly with leftovers ripe for grazing; a few cold slices, the odd potato.

Mum’s roast potatoes were nuggets of brilliance. My strongest childhood memories are of that Sunday dinner table. I’m certain that’s why I like potatoes – and cooking in general – so much. I’ve tried as a grown-up myself to bring that Sunday roast back but it really is difficult trying to balance the rest of life, commitments and demands to make sure that happens. I don’t quite know how Mum did it week in, week out.

My Mum passed away in October. The last meal I cooked for her included potatoes – BBQ wedges, since you ask. I won’t get the chance to enjoy her roast potatoes again. I’ll just have to keep on making them on my own, building on her basics, aiming a little higher each time. And keep remembering her through my cooking, and that she inspired me to love through food and cooking, and keep spreading that joy.

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chips food kitchen gadgets potatoes product review

chip face-off: tefal actifry vs delonghi deep fat fryer

Delonghi Total Clean deep fat fryer (left) and Tefal ActiFry (right)

You might’ve figured out by now that I’m a potato guy. I do love a deep fried chip, but I hate the smell and faff associated with a deep fat fryer. When you’ve had chips in a deep fat fryer, you know about it for the next few days as the fried smell gets into everything. I’ve owned them in the past but dealing with the odour, recycling the oil and general faff means when my last one died about ten years ago I didn’t bother replacing it. I’ve been doing the (frankly dangerous) chip pan thing occasionally, but more often oven-baking chips instead.

When the opportunity to try out a deep fat fryer against a Tefal ActiFry I couldn’t resist. I took them to my Dad’s who has a large utility room to take the smell. We decided to have a chip-off to see whether you could tell the difference between regular deep-fried chips and those prepated in the ActiFry.

The ActiFry is a very different beast to a regular fryer; it has a rotating drum that spins raw potato around in hot air. To this you add barely a spoon of oil. It does make a little noise while it churns but there’s no smell at all. It also takes longer than deep frying – about 35 minutes for 500g of chips, versus about 11 minutes deep frying. The Delonghi model was quiet, gave off the usual frying smell but came up to temperature very quickly. I was also impressed with how you can quickly pull the whole thing apart and clean very near all of it in a dishwasher. You still of course have to get rid of the oil when it’s reached the end of it’s frying life. The Delonghi Total Clean also had completely cool walls – you couldn’t say the same of the ActiFry.

Hestonthusiast note: I decided to go down the regular chip recipe road to keep it simple. I will definitely try them again with the triple-cooked method next time.

Both chips broken, Actifry on the right

But, but, but. What about the actual chip? Well I was confounded by being able to take raw potato and turn them into crisp chips. They coloured beautifully, made a satisfying rustle when you shook the pan, and broke open to reveal a fluffy interior. And to taste they were very, very nice. Side-by-side with the deep fried, the deep fried did edge it. They were more moist, although the ActiFry ones were more ‘potatoey’. I also got a few eager volunteers to blind taste them. The consensus was that the fried ones did taste better… but only just. And only because they were side-by-side. If you had the Tefal ActiFry ones on their own, you’d absolutely enjoy them. And the difference in health almost goes without saying: I poured two litres of oil in my deep fat fryer and they produced delicious chips, but to use approximately 5ml of oil and achieve very similar results is very impressive. I’d lined both bowls with kitchen paper; the deep fried one was greasy with fat, where as the ActiFry one was practically dry.

There’s also cost to consider. The model ActiFry I used retails around £129 and the Delonghi £69. There is a price difference but the oil running costs (£4 for the 3 litre bottle I bought) will be earned back soon once you factor in time spent cleaning and filtering the oil. I’m quite impressed by the gadget; it claims to make all sorts of other recipes so I’ll see what else it’s capable of.

Many thanks to Argos for providing the fryers to test. I was free to write whatever I wanted in the review. 

Categories
food garlic potatoes rosemary thyme

roasted new potatoes

For all the different things I make on this blog, I do still love a roasted potato as often as I can. Usually fluffy varieties are the ones, but a new potato can be a great alternative if treated right. Although to be honest slathering anything in rosemary, garlic and thyme is often a good idea.

Really though, I made these as a vehicle for ranch dressing. When relatives come back from the States they bring food gifts like sweets, and the occasional sachet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. It’s MSG-tastic but when made up with mayo and milk makes a creamy, thick and delicious dip that goes well with crudites, salad potatoes, crisps, salad, chicken, green veg… it’s really good stuff.

Roasted new potatoes (serves 4 as a side dish):

250g new potatoes, scrubbed and halved

3 cloves garlic, squashed

3 sprigs rosemary

2 sprigs thyme

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Heat a large lidded casserole on a hob and add a little oil and a knob of butter. Add the herbs and garlic, fry for 30 seconds and then add the potatoes. Turn several times in the flavoured oil to get them started, then cover and transfer to the oven.
  2. Roast for 35 – 45 minutes, turning occasionally until browned and fudgy in the middle. Serve with ranch dressing.
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