My favourite potato side dish, is a gratin.
It's everything against the waistline, but it's just soooo good.
Simple, tasty, creamy, and you don't need to do much if you serve it with a roast, the creamy sauce from the gratin, is a great compliment to the roast, especially for simple roasts like a roast chicken, goes well with the white sauce.
My favourite gratin recipe, simple easy one, has always been Neil Perry's version.
500g potatoes thinly sliced.
Melt some butter and grease the baking tray (I used a quiche dish)
Lay the slices nicely and evenly on the tray, spread a bit of salt and pepper once each layer is done.
Lay potatos just under the top of the tray.
Put on some dulops of butter and pour over around 250ml of fresh cream, just enough to cover the potatoes.
Some times, I spread on a bit of mozerella cheese but this time, I reckon this is rich enough.
In 140C oven for about an hour, and mean time, roast the chicken.
Chicken was washed and cleaned and left uncoverred in the fridge overnight. Rub on some salt and olive oil.
Serve with steamed greens.
Daring cooks were asked to be creative with their potato salad this month, by Jami Sorrento.
The demonstration of different potato salads and tips and ideas are here.
My family love a good potato salad, and normally when I mention the word potato salad, they go for the traditional version. So I made one just like what I normally would make:
Potato Salad with Mayonnaise, Eggs, Bacon and Onions
6 Desiree Potatos, boiled, cooled in colander to reduce liquid, and peeled, cut in cubes
4 Eggs, hard boiled and cut in wedges
10 Capers, finely chopped
sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 stripes of bacon
1 small brown onion
4 tbsp mayonnaise (whole egg mayo from shop or home made)
1 tbsp Dijion mustard
This is a very simple salad, and a lot of Aussie families have their own version of this salad, especially with the back yard barbeque.
The best potato to use in this salad will actually be baby chap, but since I've got a lot of desiree on hand.
When potatoes and eggs are cooled and cut, pan fry the bacon and onion till fragrant and brown, put on top of the potato and eggs, add salt and cracked black pepper, capers, and the mayo and mustart, stir through,
add a bit of herbs, if I do it for a party for adults, I'd normally add dill, parsley and chive, but when serving at home, I know the children don't like a lot of herbs so I just added some chives.
Serve with roast leg of lamb.
The second salad I made was a couple of nights later, more fit for adults and more mediterranean flavour.
Pan Roasted Spicey Potato Salad with Garden Greens
For the spice mix for the potatoes, I used smoke paprika, nutmeg, cinnamon, dry herbs (parsley, oregano, thyme), salt and cracked black pepper, lemon zest, (I would have addedn cajun peppers but I had a very hot and spicey lunch and decided to leave the heat out).
Potatoes are skinned and cubed, steamed and dried.
Heat up some extra virgin olive oil and add in potato cubes, add spices and coat them well, set aside to cool.
The rest of the salad is endive leaves, a couple, 1 cubed lemonese cucumber, 3 small riped tomato, 1 small avocado, a couple baby carrots - blanched, feta cheese.
Salad dressing is vinegarette made of 1 tbsp lemon myer juice, 1.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, salt and cracked pepper and 1 tbsp maple syrup (or honey).
Whisk very well until well combined and dressing look a bit pale yellow, smooth and milky look.
Stir through.
We had aged scotch fillet for dinner with the salad, and garlic yoghurt sauce for the steak.
A quick and easy meal idea again - from Thursday night actually.
Ok, this time it's not the traditional recipe, I just used whatever I have on hand.
Beef Stroganoff
500g Heart Smart Beef Fillet Steaks
2 small onions, sliced
200g mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp white pepper
½ cup white wine
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp raw sugar
1 tsp all spice
1 tbsp dry mixed herbs (use fresh thyme, parsley and dill chopped fine if there’s any on hand)
2 tbsp thick Greek Yoghurt (use sour cream if you have them)
Method:
Cut steaks into 2mm thin stripes, toss in flour and white pepper mixture.
In a non stick frying pan, heat up some cooking oil (use butter if you want, but cooking oil or olive oil is my choice of healthier diet), brown onions and add beef stripes, lightly brown, about 2-3 minutes.
Add salt and herbs and all spice.
Mix well and caramelize meat further, deglaze with wine.
Mix in mushrooms and cook for a further 2-3 minutes
Add yoghurt and sugar. Mix well, cook for another 2-3 minutes and it should be ready.
Potato Pancakes
6 Medium starchy potatoes
150g plain flour
1 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
125ml milk
1 knob of butter
Method:
Boil the potatoes in skin, cool in colander, remove skin.
Shred potatoes.
Prepare flour batter with flour, pepper, salt, melted butter and milk.
Mix in shredded potatoes, should still be quite chunky.
Heat some cooking oil in pan, 1 tbsp at a time, and drop ¼ cup of batter in for a big pancake or 1 tbsp of batter in for a smaller pancake.
Brown both sides.
The healthy cut of the beef is very tender, and it's nice even though it's not "tradition".....
