The season of the spud

I swear I'm not doing it on purpose, but (pace Katie) I really am cooking some ugly stuff at the moment. Not mainly orange sludge, though that season is approaching fast. But unflattering things. My box grater has been getting a good workout. Making, as it turns out, really tasty stuff. But photos will not entice.

It is also definitely potato season. This week, almost exclusively potatoes, though I shall poach some pears at some point (I've just realised I forgot to start this before the dinner that's on right now, and I refuse to get up again, so this is some accountability of sorts. Ask me later about pears). I think it's about hibernating, turning inwards, and not getting too fancy while things feel rather poised on all manner of unnerving edges at the moment.

First, let there be potato curry inna bun. I mean, really, how could I resist? Pav bhaji of sorts, based on a simple curry of grated potato, carrot, cauliflower and a chopped onion (half an onion for up to two carrots and a hefty potato - keep the other half for zhuzhing later). 

Curry first. Sweat off the onion, then add in grated garlic and ginger, garam masala and curry powder of choice, cook briefly till fragrant, and bung in your grated remaining veg, with a tin of tomatoes. Add a bit of water, about a tinful, and cook on a simmer for at least half an hour (recipe says 20-30 mins, I gave it about 45 and it was better on the second day). Recipe also says do it covered, but you really want it to cook down, so do it uncovered towards the end. This is your bun filling. 

 

Zhuzhing: salt the remaining half onion, sliced, for 5 mins, then rinse it off, cover with lots of lemon juice and use it to pique your interest in the bun later. Also, fresh coriander (though anything crunchy and green would be relevant). 

Then: buns. Ideally baps, I would think, but due to The Circumstances I was left with either crusty rolls or shiny brioche buns, and crusty rolls hurt my mouth. So slightly unsuitably floppy buns it is. 

 You could virtuously just serve it up like a burger, but the point of pav is to toast the inside of your buns in butter before sandwiching the filling, and that is what I did. It is glorious, despite the extremely basic curry.

Then: soba noodles with tahini dip. Cook some broccoli, cook some soba noodles. Recipe says do it separately, which is obviously desirable as you want to rinse the noodles once cooked else they go gloopy. Consult your conscience, but I failed to boil two pans of water and just accepted some rather cooled broccoli at the end. 

 

Mix the noodles with sesame oil and sesame seeds, and season. 

I did fish the broccoli out of the noodles on the second day. For style.

 

You want to dip them into a sauce of tahini, mirin and soy and garlic and ginger - the recipe (it's in Crave) is good on this, you do want to dip rather than to mix it straight into the noodles, otherwise it cools and gloops over time. But I had third day leftovers in a lunchbox for my Friday site visit and it worked well. I bunged in other veg, some rocket and tomatoes, to mix up the flavours more as it was cold. Successful. (That site visit was much complicated by covid, and I am more nervous about recent exposure than I have been for ages. So it may not have been that successful. But as a packed lunch, all good.)

Bombay potatoes anna fried egg. I'm having potato curry an awful lot at the moment, and that is fine. Any old Bombay aloo probably works for this, mine involving black mustard seeds, cumin (whole and ground), ground coriander, garam masala, onion, grated garlic and ginger, about 1/3 tin of tomatoes (ugh, annoying), and parboiled small spuds chopped into chunks. This is from the Sunday Night Book, which is good at this sort of slightly simplified recipe for classics, for a night when you didn't want to cook fancy, but still wanted something homemade.

The addition of a fried egg, fried in actual butter, in the frying pan I did the spices in earlier renders this both unhealthier and uglier, but (importantly) deliciouser. Small amount of coriander for balance.

And lastly, for a complete change of pace tonight, something from Mamushka, Ukrainian style. 

It's fried potatoes. Potato cakes with goat cheese, to be exact. So we end as we began: grating an onion, a carrot and three potatoes into a bowl. Mix these with lots of seasoning, 3 tbsps flour, an egg, and some goat cheese. 30g says the recipe, but I used most of one of those little supermarket logs. 

Fry it off in spoonfuls, 2 mins per side.

Then put it on a baking tray. Do not put your baking tray covered with parchment on top of a stove that has lit flames, as that is exactly how I set fire to the kitchen a couple of weeks back. Learn from my errors as I demonstrably have. Then into the oven for 10-15 minutes at least.

The recipe says this is a side for two people, but I rather thought it was big enough to be the main event. Improvised a sauce from the leftover tomatoes from yesterday, mixed with the spare goat cheese to smooth it out. Cooked long and slow while doing all the grating/frying/ovening above. Not essential, but not bad.

It was good. I don't think I'm sick of spuds yet. Ask me on Friday, though.