Dear Potato, How I Love

opinion The world’s greatest salt & vinegar crisp sandwich This is an easy recipe, but – like Dear potato, Mary Berry’s Victoria sandwich – needs to be followed carefully to be perfect. And it really is perfect. MAKES 4 PREP 20 mins plus how I love you soaking COOK 35 mins EASY V Baked, mashed, roasted – and definitely in a Dauphinoise. gives spuds star billing 2 medium potatoes Emma Freud 250ml cider vinegar 1 tsp olive oil 8 slices really soft, fresh, sliced ne of the most pressing with a cloth for 10 minutes. This dries rubbing, though be warned – they look white bread (or 4 soft white questions of my youth (once them out, so that when you add butter like murder weapons. 2) Don’t demean floury rolls) OI’d sorted out the critical issue they absorb it and taste buttery, rather the Dauphinoise by calling it a ‘side’ – salted butter and tomato ketchup, of Donny Osmond vs David Cassidy) than absorbing their cooking water and it’s the main event. A glass of wine is the to serve was, if you were stuck on a desert island tasting watery. Tiny step – big difference. side dish. 3) Wear elasticated trousers with only one food, what would it be? when you eat them, for obvious reasons. 1 Wash the potatoes and slice While my shallower friends opted for Rösti Easier than you think. Grate thinly. It’s tricky to get slices of Wagon Wheels or Angel Delight, for a potato, squeeze out all the moisture, And finally – a cooking challenge: the right thickness: either use a me the answer had to be potatoes. add rosemary, salt and pepper, then some foods are at their peak only knife, slicing as thinly as you can On average, each person in Britain pan-fry like an omelette until crispy. when cooked brilliantly using the without breaking, or a mandolin eats three spuds every day – but they Once you’ve flipped it, top with grated most expensive ingredients. The potato if you have one. Put the slices in are so entrenched in the fabric of British Gruyère or a fried egg. It’s the new pizza. is not in this category. Your steamed a dish, cover with the vinegar and food culture that I worry we don’t give new potatoes and my steamed new 1 tsp sea salt, and leave for 20 mins. them enough applause. So here is my Baked I’d thought it impossible to potatoes are as good as a chef’s steamed Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. own little love letter to potatoes… improve on a baked potato. I was wrong. new potatoes. But in the name of 2 Drain the slices, pat dry gently Steam the spud for 20 minutes to infuse research, I spent a day searching with a tea towel and put them in AGATHE GITS AGATHE Crisp sandwiches As if crisps aren’t with moisture, then bake for 40 minutes for the perfect home-cooked chip. a plastic food bag. Add the olive wonderful enough, it turns out they’re in a hot oven to get the perfect combo of This is what happened… Styling oil and 1 tsp sea salt. Jiggle the bag even better between bread. When Belfast fluffy inside and extra crispy outside. gently, then arrange the slices on opened the UK’s first crisp sandwich café Blumenthal’s triple-cooked chips two baking trays. Bake for about in 2015, its stock sold out in two hours. Boiled, squashed and then roasted vs my oven chips For my chips, I cut, 30 mins, but check after 15 mins: Keighley in West Yorkshire hosted the My favourite new method, this is a real rinsed and patted the potatoes dry you might need to swap the trays’ first English version, and a Walkers- game changer: Boil small potatoes in before drizzling with olive oil, laying positions or turn them around if sponsored pop-up followed in London. their skins, then drain and cover with a on a roasting tray and roasting in a hot | WILLIAMSON MYLES one side is browning too quickly. HipChips just opened in Soho selling cloth for a few minutes (you know why). oven for 40 mins. I served with salt, 3 While the potato slices are upmarket crisps with sweet and savoury Put each potato into a clean tea towel garlic and rosemary. They took an hour. cooking, butter the bread and gourmet dips. At last someone other than and squash so it slightly bursts, then They were delicious. spread half the slices with a thin Gary Lineker is taking crisps seriously. place on a baking tray. Drizzle with To make Heston Blumenthal’s triple- layer of ketchup. When the crisps olive oil, scatter over grated garlic cooked chips, I cut, washed, boiled, dried, are beautifully golden, remove Chip butties The ultimate indulgences and chopped rosemary, and roast froze, deep-fried and drained potatoes, from the oven, lay them on kitchen of carb-on-carb plus butter-on-fat make in a hot oven for 20 minutes until then froze, deep-fried and drained paper and sprinkle with more chip butties so wrong they’re perfect. golden and a bit crispy: the joy of a them again, before sprinkling with sea sea salt. Pile the crisps onto the Four ingredients: floury white bap, boiled spud, the texture of smashed salt. I started after breakfast and they ketchup-ed slices of bread in a butter, ketchup and thick-cut chips. potatoes and the crunch – but not were ready when my kids came home double or triple layer. Add the top Meddle with this formula at your peril. the fat – of a roastie. from school. They were also delicious. layer of buttered bread, cut off the Moral: homemade chips are delicious. crusts and eat immediately. Mashed potato Reader, I’m not going Dauphinoise We’ve arrived at And that’s really the point of potatoes – PER SANDWICH 293 kcals • fat 11g • saturates 6g • to lie, I have found it hard to do full nirvana – layered potato slices with lots unlike desert-island rescue parties, carbs 40g • sugars 6g • fibre 3g • protein 7g • salt 2.8g justice to this most magnificent of of cream, garlic and melted Gruyère – they rarely let you down. side dishes: mine were always insipid. to be served on feast days on my desert There, I’ve said it. However, everything island. Classic Dauphinoise tips: 1) If Good Food contributing editor Emma improved once I got my head around this your life is too short to peel potatoes, Freud is a journalist and broadcaster, and Next month: hack: after you’ve boiled the potatoes, try potato peeler gloves, which have director of Red Nose Day, which is on BBC Emma reflects on the importance of teaching her boys how to cook drain them, return to the pan and cover rough, abrasive palms. You peel by One on 24 March. @emmafreud styling | Food REGESTER TOM photograph | Recipe COTSWORTH DAVID Portrait 30 bbcgoodfood.com FEBRUARY 2017 FEBRUARY 2017 bbcgoodfood.com 31 .

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