Sunday, March 26, 2006

Wednesday 22nd

Still trying to get rid of the winter food stores, I decide to modify, or ‘jiffle-up’ a recipe nicked from the Grauniad, or maybe it was the Observer. A dead simple, warming potatoey thing.

The spuds in the box by the cooker are of the multipurpose white variety, and have weird little fingers growing out of them. I trim the fingers, wash the spuds, and cut into slices a bit thicker than a pound coin. The slices go into a pyrex oven proof dish (a bit of butter around the dish to keep things from sticking) in layers with some salt and pepper and a hefty sprinkling of the organic dried dill that I bought in the weird organic anarchist place around the corner when I was a bit hungover and it seemed like a good idea etc etc…

While all this potato fun is going on there is a little pan full of chicken stock on the stove gently chugging away with some chilli and a bashed up spear of lemon grass in. The fragrant hot stock goes into the dish with the spuds so that the spuds are just peeping over the top, then it goes into the oven for nearly an hour.
Spuds in stock – that’s it. I know it was in the Guardian, but my mum used to make this sort of thing when I was a kid. Yeah – we didn’t have stuffed tortellini in rural Wales when I was a nipper… I cheat a bit when it comes out of the oven and throw in a few torn up slices of roast ham that has been hanging around in the fridge for a bit. It is pure comfort food, and almost makes me regret my; ‘summery foods’ plan.

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