Kitchen Garden Blog #5 - Potato Galette




Kitchen Garden Blog #5 - Potato Galette


Potatoes are one of my favourite ingredients. So versatile. Used in so many different ways by different cultures from all over the world. I'm looking forward to introducing the KG crew to some Sichuan Potato Slivers soon. This time we kept it simple. Simple but superb. This is a dish that doesn't look out of place in top end restaurants. When it's well executed it's perfect, yet it only has 3 ingredients. Potatoes, butter and salt. What else does one need really? 


 The mandolin is, in my opinion, the most dangerous piece of equipment in a kitchen. So sharp and so easy to take off the tip of your finger. I always insist on people using the helpful, if a little cumbersome, attachment that mitigates the risk. 


We talked about what butter consisted of and then clarified some, by heating it and removing the milk solids (the white frothy stuff that rises to the top when you heat butter). These have a tendency to burn and impart burnt flavours - we just wanted the pure fat. We then doused our potato slivers in the clarified butter and added salt....sounding healthy so far?


We carefully arranged our potato slices into cast iron pans...



....and then covered them with baking paper. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it allows you to press down on the potatoes firmly without covering your hands in butter, which helps the final product become a nice dense little packet of potato. Secondly it traps some but not all of the steam to help the potatoes cook through, but without letting the lot get soggy. We're after a crispy crunch with our galettes. These go into a hot over for 40-60 mins. Worth monitoring a little depending on your pan, oven and quantity of potatoes. 



Looking good at this point. Then we invert the pan, and with a little luck, the whole lot comes out in one piece. Greasing the pan before hand helps with this. 
We made a simple little pico de gallo to go with it, with tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. We then discussed what you could serve this with. Some suggestions were: a big salad, a steak or any other roasted meat...perhaps as part of a brunch. All of those sounded pretty good to me. What would you do with it?


Cheers, 
From John and the KG crew.








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