On its side, potato gratin

Looking at something from another angle can help give you fresh perspective on things, quite literally this time. I am a carb lover, perhaps not fashionable but I can’t get enough of the white stuff, bread, potatoes, pastas, béchamel, bring it on! Nothing really hits that comfort spot better than something carby, warm, oozy and unctuously rich. Potato gratin hits all the right notes, but I always find myself picking at the top layer and loving every square centimetre, the lower layers however good and tasty they are just are not the same as that browned, burnt around the edges, melted cheese, brown cream skinned top.

But why not tip it on it’s head, or side, or do potatoes have a top side? Right anyway I digress. The thought was if I forgo the layering and stacked the potato slices vertically in the dish then every slice would have that crunchy golden edge and the lower half would be cream soaked soft goodness.

You will need:
Enough potatoes for your dish.
Cream, enough to come halfway up the potatoes.
1 Onion, thinly sliced
2 Cloves garlic, crushed
Salt
Pepper
Cheese, Parmesan, Cheddar, Gruyère are all good choices

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
• Pour the cream into a bowl and add a tsp of salt, some crushed black pepper, crushed garlic, stir up and give a little taste, you want it slightly on the salty side.
• Thinly slice the onion and add to the cream. Mix.
• A mandolin will make light work of the potatoes, peel and slice them all, dump them in the bowl and with your hands make sure they all get coated.
• Arrange the potatoes in the baking dish, squidge onion slices down any gaps and in between potato slices.
• Pour over the remaining cream from the bowl.
• Cover tightly with tinfoil and bake for about 40 minutes. Uncover and bake for a further 30 minutes. Grate cheese over the top and bake for a further 30 minutes.
• The top should be golden brown and crunchy while the underside should be soft and yielding. You can test by whipping out a slice or two to check doneness.

Salt baked swede

Swedes, rutabaga, or whatever you choose to call them, I'm guessing you fall into one of two categories, love them or hate them. Much like the often maligned brussels sprouts there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground or indifference to them, you’re either excited to have them on your plate or someone will of offended you greatly. Unlike the sprout, which on inspection you have reasonably good idea of what flavour it’s going to be, it looks like a mini cabbage and is probably going to taste a bit like one too, the swede however is a root vegetable carefully hiding its true flavours, which is pretty pronounced cabbage, so yay for Brassica lovers.

It’s a pretty versatile vegetable, it works well raw, grated with some garlic hot aioli as a remoulade, sliced thin and stir fried, baked in fat with a roast, steamed or as below baked in salt to really intensify the flavour, sliced into wedges and served with some peppery hot olive oil.


Salt crusts are reasonably straight forward, dump a lot of salt into a bowl and crack in a couple of egg whites, mix together to make a wettish sandy mixture. Make a layer in the bottom of the roasting dish, nestle in the peeled swedes and firmly pack with salt making sure there are no gaps. Bake at 170ºC for about an hour, a little longer won't hurt. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes or so. With the back of a knife, crack the crust open like an egg and gently wrestle the swedes free.

Hot thighs

Well I had planned to actually deep fry the chicken, you know go the whole hog, brine, dredge, egg wash, fry and get greasy spicy chilli oil everywhere. However the day kind of got away from me and quite frankly I had lost all motivation to get a pot full of oil and control temperatures, and then clean up the mess, so I looked to my previous tried and trusted methods of oven “fried” wings, spiced it up and adapted it for some juicy thighs. There aren’t really any proper quantities below, they are all to taste, it’s more the method of getting pieces of chicken with a crunchy exterior and a steamy moist interior without having to resort to deep frying. The method is a little more time consuming than chucking a bunch of chicken in a hot oven and cooking, but not by much.

• In a large bowl mix together flour, salt and cayenne pepper, as much or as little as you want, go a little heavy on the salt as it will be the only seasoning the chicken will get.
• Toss the chicken pieces through the flour mix, make sure to pat the mix into all the crevices. Place on a sheet pan with a rack and refrigerate uncovered for an hour.
• Get two bowls out, in one get an egg wash ready, 50/50 mix of egg and water, in the other mix together 1 part flour and 1 part semolina, spice with cayenne and chilli flakes.
• Dip the chicken in the egg wash and then dredge in the flour mix, return to the rack. Refrigerate uncovered for at least an hour, you could do this the day before.
• Preheat the oven to 220ºC, remove the chicken from the fridge 10–15 minutes before cooking, place the tray in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. The short cooking time is to “set” the coating in place before meddling. Reduce the heat to 200ºC.
• Remove and brush the top of the chicken with chilli oil (store bought or canola blitzed with dry hot chilli flakes), return to the oven and cook for a further 20 minutes.
• Remove from the oven, turn the chicken over and brush the exposed side, return to the oven for another 20 minutes.
• Last time, remove the chicken, flip it, don’t bother brushing it, you shouldn’t need to, cook for a final 10 minutes.
• Transfer the cooked chicken to a cooling rack to rest for a 10 minutes, lace with hot sauce and devour with a cooling slaw and pickles, always pickles.

Baked egg

Another meal for one, and making the best of what I have handy at home, rather than hitting up the supermarket.


I used some left over ham, spinach from the garden, a good can of tomatoes drained, jalapeños, chipotle (just 1, they can be very hot), shallot, salt and pepper.


Slice spinach and dice the ham, chipotle, jalapeño and shallot. Mix through the drained tomatoes and season.


Place in to a ramekin, and make a well in the centre for the egg.


Crumble some cheese around the top, I used farmhouse cheese, but feta would be good.
Bake at about 220°C for about 20 minutes (depends on the size of the dish).


All gone!

Chipotle related clip

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