by Mike K-H

Here are two French potato recipes with a little more flair than fast food outlet hash browns and microwaved tatties.

Rösti bernois

It only takes a little effort to liven up the hash browns served in UK roadside cafes or in northern US fast food restaurants. This recipe serves 4 people.

1kg potatoes, all the same size

2 desert spoons cooking oil

50 grams butter

3 thick slices of smoked pork belly or streaky bacon

1 or 2 onions

Coarse salt, pepper

Fresh parsley

Scrub and wash the potatoes, put them in cold salted water, bring to the boil, cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Peel the potatoes, let them cool, and grate them into coarse strips. (For best results, plan ahead. If you cook them the day before and leave them in the fridge overnight they'll be much easier to grate).

Heat half the oil and butter in a frying pan, and spread the grated potato evenly across it. Add salt and pepper to taste, and cook over a low flame for about 10 minutes - until the underside is golden brown.

Tip the potato pancake onto a plate, add the rest of the oil and butter to the pan, then cook the other side.

Meanwhile, chop the smoked pork and the onions finely and brown them in another pan.

Slide the potato pancake onto a hot plate, top it off with the onions and smoked pork, and decorate with parsley.

Potatoes baked in salt

I usually roll potatoes in salt before baking them, but this recipe is more fun. It serves 5 or 6 people.

1.5 kg of decent-sized potatoes

3 kg of coarse salt (like you would put in a grinder)

Bay leaves

Thyme

Pepper (no need for any more salt!)

Rinse and scrub the potatoes.

Tip the salt into a salad bowl. Mix in pepper, 4 chopped bay leaves and 4 branches of thyme.

Take an oval china baking dish and cover the bottom with 3 cm (just over an inch) of the seasoned salt.

Place the potatoes side by side, not touching one another, on the salt.

Add the rest of the salt, which should bury the potatoes completely. Cook for 2 hours in an oven preheated to 190 degrees C (230 degrees F).

The salt hardens into a block during cooking. Break it open with a small hammer, extract the potatoes and serve them hot.

Note. Since the salt mould traps all the flavours, the potatoes must be of good quality, and all traces of dirt must be scrubbed off.

Potato History

Want to find out a little about how potatoes became the staple food for western Europe? Click here . You'll see two more recipes as well.

Have fun. 

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