Tag: potatoes

Monsieur Potato Head

DIANE IN DENMARK2 Comments

Potage Parmentier. A French soup. Which sounds pretty exotic until you find out that Monsieur Antoine Augustin Parmentier was the name of the man who introduced potatoes to the French. Potage Parmentier. Potato soup.

Here’s my fallback potato recipe when we’ve guests coming for dinner, it’s cold outside or I need comfort food. Gratin dauphinois. Which is also French, bien sûr 😉 An exotic name but not a boring dish, trust me. Takes 5 minutes to put together and tastes très, très bon. This is my own (you know what’s coming, don’t you?) shortcut version.

You’ll need:

  • packet of frozen sliced raw potatoes (sure, you can go ahead and slice your own tatties if you want to)
  • pouring cream
  • chicken stock (I use Knorr cubes) or water
  • herbs, seasonings, salt n’pepper

Fill up your ovenproof dish with the frozen, raw potato slices. I sprinkled over garlic, chili flakes, dried parsley, a bit of paprika, Maldon sea salt and lemon pepper. Because I like those things! 🙂 Use what you’ve got.

Pour over some chicken stock (or water) until it comes halfway up the sides of the dish.

Then fill up with cream.

Lots of it, don’t be shy now…

Pop into the oven – 400f or 200c – for roughly 45 mins. Stir from time to time if you like.

Will come out all golden and yummy 🙂 We had it for dinner last night with baked ham and carrots.

For best results add cornichons (baby gherkins) and vin rouge…

Bon appétit!

Hope you have a simply super Saturday! 🙂

One potato, two potato, three potato, four!

DIANE IN DENMARK8 Comments

Yesterday I made ‘baked’ potatoes in the crock for the first time. Yay, they turned out great! Another dish (if you can call it that) to add to my crock repertoire that isn’t a soup or stewy-type thing.

I tend to overlook potatoes a bit, even though they are one of my favourite vegetables. OK, I like them boiled, mashed, as wedges/chips and pre-made röstis.

But I remember very clearly, on one of my first visits to Denmark, being served up a very ‘posh’ potato. It was at my future DMIL’s house (in Viborg, Denmark) and they went by the name of Hasselbach potatoes. Hasselbach being the name of the Scandinavian person who came up with the dinky idea in the first place.

You take a normal, washed, raw potato and ‘nestle’ it on a wooden spoon, so it doesn’t roll away…

Take a sharp knife and make deep slits through the potato. The wooden spoon will stop you chopping all the way through and ending up with several bits of potato 😉

Put in an ovenproof dish or baking sheet. Brush with a bit of oil or melted butter, sprinkle with salt, herbs, whatever you fancy and bake for about 30 minutes in a fairly hot oven.

Voilà – a potato fit for a Scandinavian King!

(Forgot, in my rush to eat the darn things, to take a picture of the finished product. So you’ll just have to make them yourself or wait until next time I serve them!)

Slow cooker/crockpot baked potatoes

DIANE IN DENMARK3 Comments

I’m experimenting today. Have jammed several large baking potatoes in my biggest crock. No water, no salt, just tatties! 🙂

The time is 9.45 am. Going to leave them until tonight and we’ll see how they turn out… Are you as excited as I am? 😉

Check back here later for updates.

*******

4 pm and everything smells good. They ‘look’ as though they are already cooked. Not going to take the lid off just yet, because I want to leave them as long as possible – just to make sure they won’t explode if I don’t prick them first and leave them all day 😉

6 pm and it’s time to serve up! They look a bit like boiled potatoes (skins are, of course, not crispy), their bottoms are slightly darkened (as if they had been on a baking sheet).

Now for the taste test! 🙂 Slice them in half and they mash easily. Quite yellow inside, not white, but quite fluffy. And they taste great with lashings of butter and grated cheddar cheese…

Things I would do different next time? Will try pricking them first. Read somewhere that makes them very fluffy inside (lets the steam inside escape).

And the million dollar question…would I make these again? Definitely! 🙂