Vegetables

Potatoes

Some vegetables go in and out of fashion. The potato just stays put, miraculously straddling fashion and permanence without stumbling. Rather like Shakespeare, but with a far broader fan-base. It has a fascinating but well-documented history which I shall skate over blithely: originating in the Andes, hitting Europe in the 16th century, greeted with deep suspicion but eventually taking root big time, both literally and metaphorically, unwitting cause of the Irish famine. I would go into more detail, but as a subject the potato deserves a book of its own, and many excellent tomes have already been written on the subject. Search one out, read and marvel at this most extraordinary of commonplace items.

Practicalities

BUYING

Much of what follows will be well known to anyone who cooks or eats, but read on if you have time, for hidden away amongst the general knowledge you may find a few useful hints.

More and more, in farm shops and the few remaining specialist greengrocers, sellers are having the courtesy to let us know the varietal name of the potatoes they sell. This is a good thing, and supermarkets have done their best to emulate it. Why shouldn’t we choose potatoes in the way that we choose apples? Sure, we may not be able to hold the specific attributes of ten different types of potato in our head at all times, but there’s pleasure to be had in stumbling across a favoured variety, that we know tastes good, and pleasure to be had in discovering that whilst one variety is fluffy and dry fleshed, another is smoother and waxier and has a distinct undertone of almonds.

Broadly speaking potatoes fall into two main categories, each more suited to certain styles of cooking than others. The dominant category is that of the maincrop potatoes, larger to very large, with a drier, mealy flesh, in season from late summer onwards into the cold months. Smaller but highly valued are the waxy potatoes, a group that includes junior new potatoes as well as what are known as ‘salad potatoes’ which retain their dense waxy texture right into maturity. The rightful season of the new potato is from late spring through to midsummer by which time they are tipping from adolescence into maincrop adulthood. Salad potatoes are harvested later, from maybe July on into the autumn.

Of course, these seasons for potatoes are now all but obliterated. Modern farming methods, imports and long storage mean that we can and do enjoy any sort of potato at any time of the year. And yet…there is a natural harmony (as always) in the old-fangled seasons. In winter we crave all those warm, caressing comfort dishes that can only be made with maincrop potatoes – steaming jacket potatoes, creamy mash, crisp-coated roasties or finger-burning fresh-fried chips. Then as the ground warms, food lightens and new and salad potatoes are in the ascendant, so exactly right with a piece of poached salmon, or grilled chicken breast, or thick slices of ham with a zesty salad. Nothing then supersedes the rightness of a good potato salad, critical side dish at a barbecue, on a picnic and at a summer wedding.

Choosing the right potato for the job in hand is important, although all rules are made to be broken. Just get to know them first, before you attempt flagrant breaches. In other words use chunky maincrop potatoes for: baking, mashing, boiling, roasting, deep-frying, sautéing, adding to doughs to lighten them (e.g. in potato bread, or potato scones), gratins and so on. Save new potatoes for: boiling, salads, sautéing, gratins, and roasting whole. Yes, there are overlaps, but the results will differ with the potato variety used.

I’ve had to concede, reluctantly, that my mother was right when she insisted that one should always buy dirty potatoes. A thin jacket of dried-on muck does indeed seem to preserve flavour to some extent. Not critical, but a bonus if you are prepared to spend a couple of extra minutes at the sink scrubbing them clean. Dirt or no dirt, glance over potatoes as you pick them out to ensure that they are free from bruised machinery gashes, mouldering patches (a sign of poor storage), sprouting shoots, and above all patches of green. That charming green coloration tells you that the potatoes have been exposed to light for too long, thus developing poisonous toxins. Not a good thing.

Maincrop and salad potatoes can be kept for some time in the right conditions (a dark, cool, dry place) but new potatoes have a short shelf life. Eat them within a few days of purchase to enjoy them at their best. Don’t leave either sort of potato in a closed plastic bag for any longer than is necessary – moisture will gather in its folds, and sooner or later your potatoes will start to rot.

Don’t keep potatoes in the fridge, or at least not for more than a day or two. In the icy claustrophobic atmosphere, the starches in the potato mutate into sugars, which, while not cataclysmic, is not really appropriate for most potato dishes.

COOKING

With their light flavour, and engaging textures, there is no end to the ways in which one can use potatoes. Potato recipes abound right around the globe, in each region gilding the basic lily with characteristic local ingredients to mould them into the local cuisine. They are just so darned versatile, a word that I loathe, but which is absolutely right in this context. For this reason I’m not going to list a chapter of ideas for how to embellish potatoes. Once you can make silky mash, bake jacket potatoes, turn out perfect crisp roast potatoes, sauté diced potatoes, and conjure up a mean potato salad, you will have mastered all the essential techniques you need to create almost any potato dish ever invented. The rest, frankly, is just a question of exercising your curiosity and imagination.

Mash

The marvellous yet confusing thing about making mashed potatoes is that there is no absolute one-and-only ideal recipe. I happen to think that perfect mashed potatoes are as smooth as silk, not quite runny, but nowhere near stiff, with plenty of nutmeg and butter to boot. You may disagree. Once you are in control of the basics, however, you can adjust method, ingredients and quantities endlessly to suit your own credo.

My mum always baked potatoes for mash and so do I – the flesh is drier and has a more distinct flavour. Microwaved potatoes are good too. Boiling comes next in line, as long as you use evenly sized potatoes and boil them in their skins. As soon as they are drained, cover with a clean tea-towel and leave to steam-dry for 5–10 minutes before peeling off the skins. Don’t peel potatoes and cut into chunks before boiling – they will just get waterlogged and lose much of their taste to the water, producing a dull, flat-tasting mash.

Good varieties for mashing are King Edward, Maris Piper, Golden Wonder, and Kerr’s Pink (my favourite), amongst others.

Mashed potatoes are a perfect receptor for all kinds of extra, zippy ingredients – try stirring in some coarse-grain mustard or a spoonful of creamed horseradish. The Irish love to add chopped spring onions softened in butter or cooked cabbage, or you could go ultra modern and mix in roughly chopped rocket leaves and the finely grated zest of a lemon.

Serves 4

1kg (21/4 lb) floury maincrop potatoes

115 g (4oz) butter, at room temperature

150–300ml (5–10floz) hot milk, or a mixture of milk and cream

salt and freshly grated nutmeg

Either bake or boil the potatoes in their skins (see above). Halve baked potatoes while still warm and scoop their flesh out into a bowl. Save skins for making crisp-roast potato skins (see page 75). Peel boiled potatoes while still warm and place in a bowl. Add the butter.

Now the mashing itself. For a really smooth mash use one of the following methods:

a) push the potato little by little through a potato ricer

b) rub the potato through a vegetable mill (mouli-légumes)

c) mash roughly with a fork, then whisk with a hand-held electric whisk until light and fluffy

d) mash roughly with a fork, then rub through a sieve.

Scrape the puréed potato into a saucepan and place over a gentle heat. Add plenty of seasoning and about a third of the hot milk (or milk and cream). Beat hard with a wooden spoon, gradually adding more milk until the mash hits the kind of consistency that sets your mouth watering. Taste and adjust seasoning, and serve.

Sage and onion mash

Chop 1 onion and fry in a little butter or oil until golden brown. Cover 10 leaves of fresh sage with boiling water (to release more flavour). Drain immediately, dry the leaves and chop roughly. Stir sage and onions into a bowl of hot mash made as above.

Roast potatoes

Perfect roast potatoes with a crackling crisp crust masking a melting, fluffy interior are rarer than they should be. The method is not hard, but it requires some forethought. The potatoes must be par-cooked in advance, then roughed up in order to develop that irresistible golden brown, crusty exterior.

If you are cooking a roast, don’t tuck the potatoes around the meat, but roast them in a separate tin, large enough to spread the potatoes out in an even single layer, not jam-packed in tightly.

The best fats to use are melted lard or dripping (without the jelly), olive oil or sunflower oil or, best of all, goose fat (available in cans and jars). I prefer to use either Cara potatoes, which have a smooth texture, or end-of-season large new potatoes, but for a fluffier interior head for the old faithfuls – King Edward, Maris Piper, Désirée, Estima and their kin.

Serves 4

1.3 kg (3 lb) large potatoes

6 tablespoons goose fat, lard, olive oil or sunflower oil

salt

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6.

Peel the potatoes and cut into medium-sized chunks – say about 5 cm (2 in) across. Cook in boiling salted water until three-quarters cooked – around 5–6 minutes. Drain thoroughly. Use a fork to scratch criss-cross lines all over the surfaces of each chunk of potato, roughing up the exterior so that it crisps perfectly.

Put the fat in a large roasting tin and slide into the oven. Heat through for 5–8 minutes. Quickly take the tin out and add the potatoes. Turn so that they are all coated in hot fat. Return immediately to the oven. Roast for about 40–50 minutes, turning the potatoes after the first 25 minutes and then again once or twice more, until they are browned and crisp all over.

Serve straightaway.

Chips

Who doesn’t love chips? And the best chips of all are those you make at home, from scratch. Frying up a batch of real chips is not something you will want to do every day, but as an occasional treat they’re worth every moment of standing over a hot pan.

Chips are fried twice, the first time at a gentle heat to just soften them right through to the centre, the second time at a higher heat to brown the outside. You can do the first batch of frying ahead of time, but leave the second hot, hot, hot session until just before serving. If you use an electric deep-fryer the temperatures are easy to gauge. If you don’t then it is worth investing in a food thermometer.

Good varieties for chips include King Edward, Maris Piper and Désirée. Cara give a slightly waxier texture which I love but if you prefer a fluffier centre stick with one of the first three.

Serves 3–4

3 large potatoes

sunflower or vegetable oil for deep-frying

salt

Peel the potatoes and cut into slices about 1 cm (1/2 in) thick. Cut lengthways into batons of about the same thickness. Cover with cold water to prevent browning, until you are almost ready to cook them.

Set the oil to heat up. The right heat for the first fry is 150°C/300°F. Drain the potatoes then dry them thoroughly on kitchen paper or clean tea-towels. Deep-fry in several batches so that the temperature of the oil is not lowered too much, allowing them to cook for about 4 minutes, without browning, until tender right through. Drain on kitchen paper and leave to cool.

Just before serving, reheat the oil, this time to 180°C/350°F. Deep-fry the chips, again in batches, until golden brown.

The only thing you need to do now is drain and salt the chips. The best way to do this is in a large brown paper bag. Yes, honestly. Tip the chips into the bag, add plenty of salt, fold over the top and shake – the bag absorbs excess fat, and the salt gets evenly distributed. If you don’t have a brown paper bag to hand, drain the chips briefly on a triple layer of kitchen paper, then sprinkle with salt. Serve straightaway while still good and hot.

Baked potatoes

Baked potatoes are fabulous comfort food, and so easy. Just pop them into a hot oven when you get home from work, go and have a bath or a glass of wine, or whatever unwinds you after a hard day, then an hour later they emerge, steaming hot, crisp outside and gorgeously tender inside. Whether you dish them up as the main part of a meal with a sumptuous topping, or as a side order, baked potatoes are warming and reassuring, and of course, they taste just fine too.

For each person you need one large baking potato – any large maincrop potato will do the job nicely. Prick the skin all over with a fork to prevent it bursting during cooking. Now you have choices to make. You can a) leave the potato just as it is, or b) dampen it and rub salt into the skin – this gives a deliciously salty skin – or c) rub oil all over the skin, to make the skin crisper, or d) go for both oil and salt or e) wrap the potato in foil for a tender, soft-skinned potato.

Once you’ve reached a decision and finished preparing your potato, bake for 50–60 minutes or until tender right through. Test by pushing a skewer into the centre. Once the potato is cooked, cover with a cloth and let it sit for 5 minutes before cutting open – this makes the flesh fluffier and lighter.