Sunday was horrendous. It was as if someone had turned the switch that said Indian summer to OFF and clicked autumn to ON in an unseemly rush.
The only good thing to be said about it is that it means comfort food is back on the agenda. We had a late late lunch (or was it an early supper) of roast loin of pork served with potatoes cooked with fennel and porcini mushrooms, both recipes were from Lucy Boyd's book.
The potatoes were pretty damn nice so here's the recipe
The veg need to be sliced very thinly for this recipe I use a small hand held mandoline like the one in the picture. In my opinion every food loving house should have one.I have a larger contraption but its a bit of a faff to use in comparison with this little beauty.
However, be warned, mind your fingers, it is dead sharp and its pretty easy to whip the end of your finger tip off.
Ingredients
600g medium sized waxy potatoes, washed and peeled
1 large or 2 small fennel bulbs, soft or damaged outer leaves removed
1 tbsp ex virgin olive oil
20g butter
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
20g dried sliced porcini mushrooms, rinsed thoroughly in a sieve and then put into a bowl and covered with 250ml boiling water
20g Parmesan (I didn't do this)
Salt and pepper
Method
Per heat the oven to 200 (180 fan)
Slice the potatoes as thinly as possible.
Now rinse the potatoes in cold water to get the starch off and then drain and dry on kitchen paper.
Cut the feather fronds off of the fennel and put to one side. Carefully slice the hard base off of the bulb. Slice the fennel downward through the stem, so that the slices stay intact. The slices need to be a similar thickness to the potatoes.
Heat the oil and butter together in a large oven proof baking tray ( I used a le creuset pan with a lid) add the garlic and let it soften for a minute or so. Strain the porcini, reserving the juice, squeeze out any excess then add the mushrooms to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring to prevent the garlic from browning. Add the porcini juice from the bowl and let it simmer and reduce by half.
Add the potatoes and toss in the juice so that they are evenly coated, then add the fennel. Carefully stir everything together, then season with salt and black pepper.Chop the fennel tips and throw in.
Stir gently for ten minutes on a medium low heat.
Now cover with foil, or the lid in my case, and put in the oven for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes remove the lid, either add the cheese or drizzle with olive oil and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until the top is browning.
Check that potatoes a cooked by inserting a skewer if it slides in easily they are done.
Remove from the oven and serve.
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