Cumin and Thyme Hasselback Potatoes – they’re no hassle !

Pin It  

After 3 shows, involving 200 children, with 450 costumes to organize, and later to wash (the costumes, not the kids), my sister wasn’t lying in bed whimpering, with the covers pulled over her head. She was slicing about a million spuds to make hassle-free Hasselback potatoes for a family dinner at my parent’s house. “You know what, Hester? You should make these on your blog,” she said.



16 down, 434 to go... (Photo, laundry and recipe inspiration by Catherine Casey)

My heart sinks just a tiny little bit when I hear the words “You know what, Hester? You should make … x,y,z … on your blog” helpfully suggested by friend or family. Often it comes with an implied deadline of “very soon”. I really, really do appreciate the suggestions, and please keep them coming but … it’s not up to me what appears, and when, on Alchemy.

The problem is that I have discovered that I don’t actually write my blog. Alchemy writes itself and it is a TOTAL DIVA. If the moment is wrong for a particular recipe, then no amount of coaxing, cajoling, threats or bribes will make the words flow or the photos pop.

Luckily it was onboard with Hasselback potatoes - very onboard - probably clued in by my eating about five of them.

They are a very pretty (and lower fat) alternative to roast potatoes, are a lovely BBQ side, and are simplicity itself to make.

You know what? You should make them! And add extra if you are inviting me around to dinner.

For hassle-free hasselbacks, you will need…
2 – 3 small potatoes, skin on, per person (about the size and shape of an egg is ideal)
a little melted butter or extra virgin olive oil
a little sea salt (Maldon, or similar, looks beautiful)
cumin, freshly ground if possible (wonderful with potatoes)
fresh or dried thyme

Method

Wash the potatoes and remove any blemishes – no need to peel. Place each potato in turn on a wooden spoon and with a sharp knife cut almost all the way through in slices of between 3mm and 5mm thick. The wooden spoon helps prevent the knife going all the way through.

Drop into a bowl of cold water until ready to cook. The water helps remove some of the starch and helps the potatoes fan out a little better. When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 200°C while you drain the potatoes and pat dry with kitchen paper.

Brush with a little melted butter or olive oil, getting the brush between the slices (also helps them fan out a little better).

 

We're brilliant at BBQs!

Sit the potatoes into a baking dish or roasting tin, joined side down, and sprinkle with a little salt, ground cumin and thyme. This is not an exact science. How much of each is up to you.

Place in the preheated oven and bake for about 50 minutes or until golden and cooked through – they should be easily pierced with a fork.

Marvel at just how pretty a spud can be before serving to an appreciative audience.

Pin It

Boxty – out of the laundry room and into the frying pan

Pin It

Out of the laundry room and into the frying pan

Writing in The Medical Times and Gazette in 1865, Henry MacCormac M.D., of Belfast, mentions the preparation of Boxty or ‘poorhouse bread’.

“The country people prepare, for purposes of laundry, potato starch. Raw potatoes are peeled, grated and washed. The gratings from which the boxty cake is made remain in the colander. This boxty cake … has a peculiar but not unpleasant flavour. I remember having partaken of it… in one of the houses of the peasantry.”

Thanks Henry, I know there were particular reasons for such frugality at the time, but that sounds really, really grim. No wonder Boxty isn’t our national dish!

As if that weren’t bad enough, a traditional rhyme suggests that if you were a female at that time, and this concoction wasn’t in your repertoire, you were in big trouble: Boxty on the griddle /Boxty in the pan / If you can’t make boxty / You’ll never get a man. Yikes!

Mercifully, laundry methods, society, and potato cuisine have all moved on since the dark days of the nineteenth century. You'll find that Boxty can be a type of potato cake, a dumpling or a pancake. Today’s recipe is for the pancake. My preference is for the floury Rooster potato but any floury potato will do.

For approximately 12 boxty pancakes you will need…

350g freshly boiled and mashed potato

50g butter

250g raw potato, finely grated

250g plain flour

1 teaspoon fine table salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon bread soda

350mls buttermilk

A little sunflower oil or extra virgin olive oil for frying

Mix the butter with the freshly made mashed potato while it is still hot. Leave to cool.

Meanwhile, wring the grated potato out in a clean tea towel to extract as much liquid as possible. (Discard the liquid.)  Add the grated potato to the cooked mashed potato along with the flour, salt, baking powder and bread soda and mix to combine.

Gradually mix in the buttermilk to form a thick batter.

Now, heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Wipe the hot pan with a wad of kitchen paper dipped in sunflower oil, giving the pan the barest sheen of oil. (Keep the oily paper to wipe the frying pan between cooking each pancake.)

Fry gently until the surface of the batter has set

Scoop about 80mls of batter into the pan and quickly smooth it out to form a circle. Fry gently until the surface of the batter has set, then flip the pancake over. Continue cooking for a further 30 seconds or so, or until the pancake is golden brown. Repeat until all the batter has been used up, keeping the cooked pancakes warm in a low oven.

Serve as part of a cooked breakfast or drizzled in maple syrup.

Variation:

I make tiny versions of these as an alternative to blinis and serve with smoked salmon and crème fraiche.

Pin It

Cottage Pie with Potato Slates - low-brow but lovely!

Pin It

I love, love, love pretty, primped, posh food - the sort that Neven Maguire does in his restaurant. You know, trio of this, ballotine of that. And while I’m not crazy about foams, I'll happily mop up every last atom of a jus or a reduction - with a suitably high-brow crust of bread, obviously! If a foodstuff is creamed, candied or caramelised, I’m there. A bisque, a carpaccio, an assiette? You bet!

However, sometimes you just need no-nonsense rib-sticking comfort food. The second-coldest winter on record has given me plenty of opportunity to make Cottage Pie. There is nothing like it to chase the Winter blues away. 

While I love this pie topped with rich buttery mash, it can pile on the pounds so this is my low(er) calorie, low brow version with potato slates. As it is stuffed full of vegetables, it needs no accompaniment (except perhaps a low-brow blob of HP or Chef Brown Sauce). In an ironic nod to posh food you could make it in individual portions.

For 4 – 6 portions of no-nonsense rib-sticking Cottage Pie you will need...
... to pre-heat the oven to 180°C when ready to bake the pie

Filling

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 medium onions (about the size of a tennis ball), finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

1 stick of celery, peeled of stringy fibres, finely chopped

1 fat clove of garlic, crushed

½ teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme

500g of the best minced beef you can afford (make friends with your butcher and get him to mince some round steak while you wait.)

200mls good beef stock

100mls red wine

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

2 tablespoons oxtail soup-mix (the low brow ingredient)

75mls cold water 

Topping
500g smallish evenly-sized potatoes (prepared weight) peeled and cut into ½ cm slices

2 large handfuls of fresh spinach, shredded (optional)

100g cheddar cheese, grated

50g parmesan cheese, finely grated 



Low-brow but lovely!

In a medium frying pan over a medium heat, heat half the olive oil. Add the chopped onion, carrot, and celery and cook gently without colouring, until the onions are soft and translucent –6 – 8 minutes. Add the crushed garlic and thyme and cook for a further minute. Transfer to a bowl and return the pan to the heat.

Add the rest of the olive oil and the minced beef and fry until the mince has browned.

Return the cooked vegetables to the pot, along with the beef stock, wine and chopped parsley. Simmer gently for about 20 minutes while you prepare the potato slate.

For the potato slates, place the potato slices in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for approximately 15 minutes or until easily pierced with a knife but not falling apart. Drain and allow to cool sufficiently to be handled.

While the potatoes are cooling, thicken the meat filling by blending the oxtail soup-mix with the water until smooth and stirring into the simmering meat. Cook for a further 5 minutes then remove from the heat. Transfer to a large pie dish or divide between 4 – 6 individual pie dishes. Pre-heat the oven now, while you finish preparing the pie.

Cover the meat filling with the shredded spinach (optional) and arrange the slices of potato on top in overlapping rows, like the slates of a roof – it is Cottage Pie, after all. Sprinkle with the grated cheeses. Place the dish(es) on a baking tray to catch any juices that may bubble over, and bake in the preheated oven for 25 - 30 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown and the filling bubbling hot.

Pin It