Vegetables - Sophie Grigson

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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

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