chapter XXV - mamon wellman cooks 10

sunday roast potatoes
"it's amazing what we take for granted is what we miss the most. Now that your no longer with us, I miss your Sunday roast"

Sunday's was always roast day for the Wellman whanau. We would invariably wake up to mum scurrying around in the kitchen, and the aroma of a roast dinner already cooking. Breakfast was never a big deal in our household, so we would probably just grab some toast while we waited for our Sunday dinner; umm, I mean lunch. Mum loved her Sunday roast, as we all did. We all loved the food and the way she cooked it, but for mum it was more than that. It was an institution not to be messed with. 

When I was growing up in Wales, we were big church goers. Well us kids were. Every Sunday morning we would be appropriately attired, "in our Sunday best" and myself and my two sisters would be sent packing to morning service, with a penny clutched tightly in our hands to put in the collection box. We would often go to afternoon Sunday school as well. To this day I can still recite the New Testament books in order. It wasn't until we were adults, mum confessed that the main reason for us going was so that her and dad could have some alone time!

The meat varied; roast chicken, pot roast beef, roast lamb or roast pork. But what never varied was that we always had Yorkshire pudding with it, there was always two vegetables and always, "no one makes 'em like mum' crispy roast potatoes. Mint sauce was not reserved just for roast lamb, mum loved it with her roast beef too.

One of the vegetables that we had, more often than not was cauliflower. Mum would always buy a fresh cauliflower (frozen vegetables were a luxury item back then) and cook both the florets and any outer green leaves or stems with it. She would cook them until very soft and then mash the two together. This was delicious when lavished with mum's thick, roast gravy. Cauliflower puree seems to be quite a trendy item these days, again our mum was decades ahead of the game ;-)

roast potatoes

I say no one makes roast potatoes like our mum, and no one did. But it seems every TV chef is now using her recipe and knows her secrets. It took 30+ years, but the world is finally catching up with my mother's cuisine. This recipe is basically how mum would have done it, with a few extra tweaks from myself

secret number one   - make sure you pick a good floury potato for them; desiree, king edwards, maris piper or my personal favourite Agria, that have a lovely yellow flesh (see picture) to them and end up looking really golden in colour when cooked. 

secret number two   - use a good animal fat; dripping, lard, goose or duck fat. My mother always used a rendered pork fat (lard) made by our local butcher. 

secret number three - boil the potatoes with the potato peelings. The peel hold an immense amount of flavour, that is imparted into the potatoes as they cook

secret number four   - roughen the potato edges, to encourage crispening

secret number five    - sprinkle the potatoes with a little flour (or semolina if your feeling flush) 

                                                                                                                                           

recipe - cheffies roast potatoes a la mamon

012 pc  potatoes 
200 gm pork fat  (or duck/goose fat if you prefer)

recipe - method of preparation

Place the roasting tray with the fat in, into a pre-heated oven (200 - 220C) it must be hot, hot, hot. 

Wash well, peel and cut into even sized pieces. Rinse well and place into cold salted water and simmer gently until the potatoes are cooked; to the point of almost falling apart. Drain the potatoes into a wide colander. Give them a little shake to break up the potato's surface a little, so the surface looks fluffy (this broken surface is what will crispen) Allow to steam and dry out. 

notes

• placing the boiled potatoe on a tray and sprinkling with a little flour or fine semolina, will really aid crispening
• for maximum flavour, boil the potatoes along with the peel (which can be wrapped in muslin if you have it to make for easy removal), this adds that real potato flavour punch

Carefully remove the hot roasting tray from the oven and carefully place in the potatoes; ensuring they really sizzle, (do not over crowd the pan)  if not remove the first potato and continue to heat the fat. 

When all the potatoes are in, use a large spoon and baste the potatoes all over. Or place the roasting tray over a high heat and turn the potatoes to fry all the edges (or fry and baste). This will seal the outside and help prevent the final potato being too greasy inside

Place into the oven and roast until golden, crisp and cooked (turning potatoes as required), approx 1 hour. 

next week - mum's yorkshire's puddings .......