Totally naked, baby, totally nude
Let me clarify my position on potatoes…I adore them! However, I do not love mashed potatoes. I know, I know, you’re shaking your head right now and muttering “what is not to love?”. I can understand that, I get that salt, butter, and cream are an admirable and compelling addition to the common potato. But, when it comes to the potato I’ve been born again baby…I was lost but now I’m found! I like to start with a potato that is totally naked, totally nude. This truth has been revealed to me in stages over the past year.
First there was our trip to London where I ate the classic “Sunday Roast” and discovered a potato, peeled, and cooked whole, but not soggy. Instead it was almost flaky on the outside and waxy in the middle. The taste of the potato was complete potatoey perfection from both the flavor and texture. I’d never had anything like it and it was superb. Then upon my return I tried to replicate this potato and I just couldn’t get it right, the outer layer was always soggy. Then one day I was watching Nigella and she was preparing a potato dish. Her pan choice wasn’t a deep pan or pot but rather a shallow sauce-pan with only the barest minimum of water necessary to get the job done. Then she cooked the potatoes until they were almost done, drained them, and returned them to the heat to “fluff”…and fluff they did. Excellent! I finally had a method to work with.
Lucky for me not all local potatoes were lost in our late summer flood. There were the luscious purple potatoes from Jordandal Farm and then the perfect french fingerling’s and yukons from Vermont Valley. I’ve come to love potatoes cooked with this method and while I’m sure at some point I’ll end up mashing a potato again, I know it won’t be one of these perfect local gems. They are best with coarse, kosher salt and maybe a very slight puddle of butter or meat drippings to skate it through on the way to my mouth.
Last night I served the potatoes alongside braised beef, shallots, and sauteed mushrooms…each bite was a delight. For breakfast this morning I ate the leftover potatoes, heated gently, sprinkled with some seasoning, and topped with a dollop of garlic yogurt (left over from falafel night) and chopped parsley. I wanted more.
Braised beef with naked potatoes, and shitake mushrooms
For the braised beef:
Beef roast, chuck is best
1 cup red wine
1 cup water
handful of peel shallots
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 carrot, peeled and chunked
salt, pepper, thyme
For the potato and mushrooms:
8 to 10 small potatoes
Shitake mushrooms
butter
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Brown the roast on both sides in a dutch oven. Add everything else, pop a lid on the pan and put it in the oven. Let it cook for 2.5 to 3 hours depending upon the size of the roast.
Then:
Peel your potatoes and place them in a shallow saucepan with about ½ inch of water and a good pinch of salt. Cook these on medium until they are almost done. When you knife them they should be tender but not fall off the knife blade. Drain the pan of water and return it, covered, to the burner on medium low. Remember to give them a shake every so often to keep them from sticking
Remove the roast and shallots from the pan and cover tightly to keep warm. Put the pan on a burner and reduce the remaining beef juices to a nice consistency…adding beef stock, water, or wine if necessary.
Sauté the mushrooms in the butter until tender.
Slice the beef about ¼ inch thick. Serve in a shallow bowl. First add the beef juice, then the beef, the shallots, the mushrooms, and finally the potatoes.
Hail Britannia: a Fish & Quips Extravaganza
Sam Breach, self-described English-girl-abroad and author of Becks and Posh, is hosting Fish & Quips, an online event designed to promote the idea that English cooking is not 
always a joke. I feel especially lucky and relevant since we spent 12 days in London last month, and as always, we found food. The feast you see above is representative of Borough Market’s exquisitely fresh purveyors, the luxe purveyor Harrod’s, and the cheese meca Neal’s Yard Dairy. I do regret not having a kitchen available while I was there. But we did manage to eat quite a lot of Wild Boar Pate from The Ginger Pig and the cheeses we picked up at the market and at Neal’s were worth the trip itself with fabulous textures and big classic flavors. I tasted a cheese called The Stinking Bishop…the name is appropriate and I think I showed good sense in not buying that particulary pungent fromage given the small size of our hotel room.
Our dining experiences in London certainly proved to me that English Food is no joke (but we did have fun). I heartedly approve of the Sunday Roast tradition. I ate delicious roast lamb and the potatoes…well they were the best. I really don’t know how they do it but they were unlike any I’ve ever had…they were crisp and golden on the outside and flaky and tender inside. According to Sam it is the English potatoes…check out her Sunday Roast.
We ate sushi, pizza, pasta, Indian cuisine, steaks, bangers and mash, fish and chips (of course), mussels, frites, pastries, macaroons, burgers, a “English breakfast”, Shepard’s pie, and chocolates. It was all befitting a world-class city and was consistently well cooked, well served, and delicious.
With fresh ingredients like the ones shown here I can’t imagine that English cuisine is a joke. Delicious, sumptuous, and satisfying…but not a joke.
Last week I tried my hand at Cottage Pie, which is Shepard’s pie made with beef instead of lamb. It turned out well and was flavorful and rich. GH certainly liked it and it heated up well for his lunch the next day. I thought it to be flavorful but heavy for a warm spring day… I could see really digging into it on a cold, snowy day.
Cottage Pie
1 large onion diced
2 pounds ground beef
6 large potatoes
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
Chicken Stock
Seasoning (I used a couple dashes of Maggi but Worchester seems to be the norm)
Preheat oven to 400º. peel and boil the potatoes until tender. Drain and mash/whip using a mixer. Add the butter to the potatoes and taste for seasoning.
Sauté the onion until it’s tender. Add the ground beef and brown it. If it’s fatty drain some of the fat. Add the flour to the beef and stir it in so that it is combined. Slowly add chicken stock, stirring until you have the consistency you want. Not too thick, not too thin. Add your seasoning.
Butter a baking dish and spread the ground beef evenly throughout the pan. Spread the potatoes evenly over the ground beef. Using a fork or a spoon create texture on the surface of the potatoes so they’ll brown well. Bake for 20-30 minuted or until golden brown.
