Side dishes

Preheat oven to highest setting. Grease large roasting tray (line it with baking parchment) with 1 tbsp oil. Scrub but do not peel potatoes – they roast better unpeeled. Cut into thick chip shape wedges. The flesh is hard & woody so be careful – they can be difficult to chop.

Toss with the rest of oil and salt. Lay flat on lined roasting tray – must be in a single layer. Cook at least 30 mins until outside crispy and inside soft.

You can scatter dried chilli or hot paprika on before roasting.

Garlic fanned potatoes

Heat oven 200c – 6 baking potatoes

Cut slice from one side of 6 large baking potatoes then along their length. Slice cut thin flices not quite going through.

Mix garlic, crushed and cayenne pepper & olive oil. Coat potatoes. Roast 50 to 60 mins.

Devilled Spuds

Parboil new pots
Mix yoghurt, ground cumin, turmeric, ginger, black pepper.
Pul olive oil in roasting pan
Turn pots into map, coat with oil and seasonings
Roast in hot oven.
Sprinkle with parsley. Serve with lamb.

Creamy potato gratin

Feeds 4. Takes 1hr 10 min.

An irresistible accompaniment that is always devoured the instant it hits the table. Serve with anything you like.

Everyone has their favourite spuds, from the cute little earlies in May, to the maincrops that sustain us through autumn. Floury potatoes such as King Edward, Maris Piper and pink-skinned Desirèe and Romano are higher in starch than slippery, waxy salad potatoes. Use them for a dry, fluffy mash, roasting, frying and deep-frying anything that requires serious crispery.

1 garlic clove, peeled
1kg round, waxy potatoes, peeled
1 cup milk
½ cup double cream
2tbsp gruyère or parmesan, grated
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 5. Rub a shallow, oval baking dish with garlic. Slice potatoes as thinly as humanly possible. Mix cream and milk together. Layer the potatoes in the dish, sprinkling them with half the cheese and half the liquid as you go. Top with remaining cheese, liquid, and a scattering of salt and pepper. Bake uncovered at 180C/Gas Mark 5 for an hour. If, after 45 minutes the potatoes are still pale, bung the heat up to 200C for the last 15 minutes, until the top layer is crisp and golden.

White wine potatoes

Feeds 4 to 6, Takes 50 min

While it bakes, the potato absorbs the aromatic wine, herbs and garlic. Serve with roast chicken, lamb or beef.

1kg waxy potatoes
4 shallots or 1 onion
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1tsp sea salt
½ freshly ground black pepper
3tbsp good olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
1tbsp thyme sprigs
1tbsp rosemary sprigs

Heat oven to 200C/Gas mark 6. Peel potatoes and cut in half lengthwise, then slice into thinnish slices. Peel and finely slice shallots. Combine shallots, garlic, sea salt, pepper, olive oil, white wine, and almost all the thyme and rosemary in a large shallow heatproof baking dish, add potatoes and toss well. Add enough water to just cover (around two cups) and bring to the boil, Boil for two minutes, then transfer to the oven. Cover and bake for ten minutes then bake uncovered for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender and liquid has mostly been absorbed, Scatter with remaining thyme and rosemary, and serve with a slotted spoon.

Crash-hot potatoes

Feeds 4. Takes 45 min.

Small, boiled potatoes are crushed on to a baking tray with a potato masher, brushed with a little olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and fennel seeds, and blasted in a very not oven until terminally crisp. Serve with pan-fried fish, grilled sausages, or veal casserole.

12 to 16 small, round potatoes
Salt
1tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1tsp sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp fennel or caraway seeds
1 tbsp thyme or rosemary sprigs

Heat oven to 2500/gas mark 8. Don't peel the potatoes. Just bung them into a pot of salted water, bring to the boil, and simmer for about 15 minutes, until you can stick a skewer through one without too much resistance. Don't worry if the skins burst. it doesn't matter. Drain well and arrange on lightly oiled baking tray or sheet. Use potato masher to squash each potato until flat. Brush the tops with olive oil, and scaler with sea salt. pepper, fennel seeds and thyme sprigs. Bake on the top shell of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until crisp and golden. Serve hot.

Waxy potatoes such as Charlotte, La Ratte, Jersey Royal, Belle de Fontenay and the runty looking Pink Fir Apple are wonderful simply boiled and tossed in butter and sea salt, or served as a hot potato salad with a garlic vinaigrette. Of all the possible potato pathways to Elysium, however, my crash-hot potatoes are the best. They're a cross between crisp roasted and deep-fried smashed potatoes. The outside is crunchy and looks as if you’ve driven over it with a tractor, while the inside is all hot, steamy, fluffy stuff. They don't require much fat and it doesn't seem to matter what spuds you use - any small, all-purpose variety will do - which is something of a relief in these days of extreme potato connoisseurship. You don't even have to peel them. Now, that’s potato nirvana.

Fire Roasted Red Peppers and Nectarines

8 large red peppers
4 ripe but firm nectarines
4 tsp of balsamic vinegar
6 tbs olive oil
Fresh black pepper

Roast peppers until skins blacken. Drop into large plastic sandwich bag, leave until cool enough to handle then rip off skin. Cut in half then in long thin strips.

Place in shallow dish with juices. Half nectarines and slice up into peppers. Toss. Drizzle over balsamic, oil and black pepper.

Mums note: Delicious at a BBQ. Everyone goes back for more.

Roasted cauliflower

Anthony – Greengrocer, Beaminster

1 whole cauliflower
Piece of turmeric grated
2 – 3 garlic cloves crushed
Olive oil
Finely chopped chilli

Mix into paste, smear onto cauliflower and roast.

Steven's way of doing mash

Do away with watery mash! Simply bake your potatoes until the insides are fluffy. Let them cool a little until you can stand to handle them. Peel off the skin - it should be easy to pull off with your fingers after they have rested for a few mins. Put the peeled spuds through a potato ricer, add butter and milk to get them to the consistency you want. Make them looser with milk for topping on pies.

Irish Soda Bread

6 ozs or 170 g self-raising flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarb soda
½ pint buttermilk or milk with 2 tsp lemon juice

Heat oven to 400F or 200C.

Tip in flour, salt and bicarb of soda. Make well, pour in buttermilk. Mix quickly to form soft dough with a fork. Don’t overwork it. May need more milk. Should not be too wet or sticky though.

Turn onto floured surface, kneed briefly. Form into round, flatten slightly before placing on lightly floured baking tray.

Cut a cross on top. Bake 30 mins or until the bottom sounds hollow. Eat with lashings of butter.

Mum’s note: Everyone except my sister Elizabeth loves it.

Mums Yorkshire Puddings (Gran’s)

2 dessert spoons plain flour
2 dessert spoons self raising flour.
1 egg (2 if small)

Mix with a little cold water.

Add milk until a pancake consistency.

Heat fat in patty tins (cupcake tins) until very hot. 15 mins cooking.

Mum note: Mum made the worlds best Yorkshires.
There was a bit of Yorkshire magic in them.

Or……

¼ pint milk
2 eggs
4oz plain flour
Salt and pepper

Make batter – beat well. Stand hour or so.

Melt lard or beef fat in patty tins, put in oven and when very hot, ladle in enough batter, place in hot over after removing roast. 15 – 20 mins until risen.

Mums note: My mum made the best Yorkshire puds ever, light as clouds

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