Jersey royal potatoes with peas, wild garlic and crème fraîche

A recipe for one of my favourite ingredients (potatoes) from one of my favourite restaurants, Root in Bristol, whose chef, Rob Howell has written a glorious cookbook of their food which is basically vegetable-based without being wholly veggie.

This is the perfect recipe for early spring when the temperatures haven't quite caught up with the produce.

Rob writes: "This dish is a joyous celebration of the arrival of spring. The winter months are a fast passing memory and green shoots are showing all around. Jersey Royals are such beautiful potatoes with a unique flavour. If you can’t be bothered to make the pea purée then the Jerseys will still be great simply served with good butter, fresh peas and some locally growing wild garlic – a true spring feast."

SERVES 4

1kg Jersey Royal potatoes

2 bay leaves

2 thyme sprigs

2 mint sprigs

2 garlic cloves, crushed

10g salt

2 tablespoons cooking oil

2 shallots, diced

200g fresh peas

25g unsalted butter

2 tablespoons chopped chives

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 handfuls of wild garlic

4 tablespoons crème fraiche

FOR THE PEA PURÉE

50ml rapeseed oil

1 shallot, sliced

1 garlic clove, sliced

600ml vegetable stock

375g frozen peas

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with enough cold water just to cover them. Add the bay, thyme and mint sprigs, and the crushed garlic and salt. (Feel free to use other aromatics, if you wish – just any that you have available. For example, parsley, rosemary and oregano would all work, too.) Place the pan over a medium heat and bring to a low simmer. Cook the potatoes gently for 20–25 minutes, until just tender to the point of a knife. (They will continue to cook a little once you’ve drained them, so you don’t want them too soft.) Drain and leave to cool in the colander.

To make the pea purée, heat the rapeseed oil in a large saucepan over a high heat. When hot, add the shallot and garlic, season with a touch of salt and fry for 2–3 minutes, until softened. Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Add the peas and season again with salt and this time pepper, too. Take the pan off the heat and drain the peas, reserving the stock.

Set aside 100ml of the reserved stock in a jug. Put the peas in a food processor, add a little of the remaining stock liquid and blend. Keep adding stock through the feed tube little by little until you have a lovely, smooth pea purée. If you want an extra-smooth consistency, pass the purée through a sieve, but it’s not essential. Check the seasoning and cool the purée as quickly as possible – transferring it to a bowl and setting it inside a larger bowl filled with ice and placing in the fridge is a good way to do this. Chill until needed. (It also keeps well for 2–3 days in the fridge and freezes well.)

Heat the cooking oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. When hot, add the shallots and fry for 30 seconds, then add the cooled potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Add the fresh peas and the reserved 100ml of stock, and bring to the boil.

Reduce to a simmer, then add the butter, herbs and wild garlic (reserve a few wild garlic flowers for garnish). Stir through the pea purée, adding enough to coat the potatoes and to create a nice saucy pan of green goodness (you can use any remaining purée as a soup or to serve with fish). Check the seasoning one last time and transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with wild garlic flowers and serve with the crème fraîche on top.

What to drink: You could go for either a red or white wine with this dish. A light pinot noir would be a good pairing - it always goes well with peas or, as the dish is so classically British, maybe think of an English white like Bacchus or even an English chardonnay

Credit: Root by Rob Howell (Bloomsbury Publishing, £26) is out now. Photography by Alexander J Collins.

Rob Howell's restaurant Root is at Wapping Wharf, Bristol. rootbristol.co.uk

Poppycooks' Bacon-y Garlic-y Potato-y

Given TikTok megastar Poppy O'Toole (aka @poppycooks) passion for potatoes I really had to pick a potato recipe from her fab new cookbook Poppy Cooks so here is the recipe she calls Bacon-y Garlic-y Potato-y - which really does what it says on the tin.

Bacon-y Garlic-y Potato-y

Okay. This is my official statement on achieving the perfect potato dish: bacon, garlic and potato are the ménage à trois that is out here changing lives. It’s the modern-day throuple that’s right every time. Unless you’re veggie, that is – in which case, this dish is still a stand-out with just the garlic.

Serves 4

The core

1 recipe quantity of Cheese Sauce (see below)

For the gratin

4 large potatoes, peeled, and sliced into 5mm-thick (2 inch) rounds

1 tsp salt, plus extra to season

200g/7oz smoked bacon lardons

3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

2 rosemary sprigs, leaves picked and roughly chopped

100g/3.oz cheddar, grated

black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/Gas 6.

2. Tip the spuds into a large saucepan and just cover with water. Add the salt and place over a high heat. Bring to the boil, then cook for about 7 minutes, until tender.

3. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then suspend the colander in the potato pan and cover with a clean tea towel for about 5 minutes, until the potatoes have steamed off and dried out a bit.

4. While the spuds are boiling, add the lardons to a cold frying pan and place over a medium heat. Fry for about 6 minutes, until cooked through and golden. Remove the lardons from the pan and set aside on a plate lined with kitchen paper.

5. Tip one third of the spuds into a medium ovenproof dish, spreading them out in an even layer. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over one third each of the garlic, rosemary, lardons and cheese. Top with a good ladleful of cheese sauce (if it’s been chilling in the fridge, you may need to spread it out a bit) and repeat twice more (potato, garlic etc, cheese, sauce), until the dish is full and you’ve finished with a final sprinkling of cheese. Bake for 30 minutes, until golden and a bit crispy on top. Dig in!

Cheese Sauce

It ends here. No more packet cheese sauces. It is literally so easy to make your own (it’s just the béchamel with cheese in it) and I promise you’ll be able to tell the difference. Forget the powdery texture and the 10,000 unknown ingredients that you just ignore on the packet. You know everything going into this baby, and it’s all good stuff. Good stuff = good sauce.

Serves 4-6 (depending on how you use it)

500ml/2 cups whole milk

50g/2oz butter

70g/2.oz plain flour

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

200g/7oz your choice of cheese, grated (I’d go for cheddar and double Gloucester, but a traditional mornay sauce usually just has gruyère in there)

1. Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and place it over a medium heat for 7 minutes, until warmed through. Set aside.

2. Place a second, smallish saucepan over a low–medium heat. Add the butter and allow it to melt. Then, using a spatula or wooden spoon, gradually beat in the flour, about a tablespoon at a time, until you have a thick paste. You don’t want the paste to start browning – if you’re worried just take the pan off the heat to slow things down a little as you add.

3. Once all the flour is in, cook, stirring, until you have a dough-like consistency and the paste is coming away from the sides of the pan.

4. Little by little, add the warmed milk, making sure you allow the first addition to fully incorporate into the paste before adding more. Keep mixing to avoid lumps – switch to a whisk if you need to.

5. Once all the milk is in and you have a smooth, thick sauce, season with the salt and nutmeg.

6. Now, simply add your cheese and stir to melt in and combine for the perfect cheesy sauce! If you’re not using the sauce straight away, transfer it to an airtight container (leave it to cool before you put the lid on). You can store it for 3 days in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer.

What to drink: I'm not sure how much of a wine dish this is but a Chablis or lightly oaked chardonnay would work pretty well. Or a Belgian-style blonde ale like Leffe.

From Poppy Cooks by Poppy O'Toole published by Bloomsbury at £20.

Cheesy Three-Root Bake

If you're a fellow potato fan you'll absolutely love this warming recipe from Jenny Linford's new book Potatoes.

As she rightly points out "Cheese and potatoes are one of those simple but satisfying combinations. "

"This homely dish makes an excellent mid-week supper. Serve it on its own for a vegetarian meal or accompany it with grilled/broiled bacon or sausages."

SERVES 4

500 g/171/2 oz. waxy potatoes, peeled

2 carrots, peeled

200g/7 oz. celeriac/celery root, peeled and cut into chunks

30g/2 tablespoons butter

1 leek, washed and chopped

2 tablespoons plain/all-purpose flour

300ml/11/4 cups milk

100g/1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook the potatoes, carrots and celeriac/celery root in boiling, salted water until tender; drain. Slice the potatoes, carrots and celeriac/celery root.

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F) Gas 6.

Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan. Add in the leek and fry gently over a low heat, stirring, until softened. Mix in the flour and fry, stirring, for 2 minutes. Gradually mix in the milk, stirring as you do so.

Bring to the boil, stirring, so that it thickens into a white sauce. Stir in 75 g/3/4 cup of the cheese until melted and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Place the root vegetables in an ovenproof baking dish. Pour over the cheese sauce and mix gently, so that the vegetables are coated.

Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and the breadcrumbs.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve at once.

What to drink: I'd probably go for a glass of dry white wine with this like an unoaked chardonnay or chenin blanc but cider would work well too.

This recipe is extracted from Jenny LInford's book Potatoes which is published by Ryland Peters & Small at £14.99. Photograph ©Clare Winfield,

Quality Chop's legendary confit potatoes

It's not often you go to a restaurant just for the potatoes but The Quality Chop House's confit potatoes are off the scale - crisp on the outside, meltingly delicious within. Fortunately for those of you who don't live in or near London chef Shaun Searley shared the recipe in his book The Quality Chop House which came out last year. (I also have my eye on the beef fat Hispi Cabbage!)

Confit Potatoes

Our confit potatoes have become rather legendary. They are the only dish we haven’t once taken off the menu since their happy conception in spring 2013. We’d just opened the restaurant and needed to find something to serve with the chops. Shaun was adamant that QCH didn’t need chips – next thing you know we’d have squeezy ketchup on the tables – but we obviously needed something indulgent, and probably potato-based. We started making layered potatoes and after much trial and error and refrying leftovers, Shaun landed on these crispy golden nuggets.

What with the slicing, layering and overnight chilling, these are something of a labour of love – but they’re worth it. Do use Maris Pipers: they have the perfect sugar-starch-water content to prevent collapse while cooking.

SERVES 6

1kg Maris Piper potatoes

125g duck fat

1 tbsp salt

oil, for frying

Maldon salt, to taste

mustard dressing (see below)

Preheat the oven to 120°C and line a standard 1.7l terrine mould with baking parchment.

Peel and wash the potatoes, then use a mandoline to slice them as thinly as possible. In a large bowl, toss the slices thoroughly with the duck fat and salt. Layer the potatoes in the mould, one slice at a time, until you’ve built up multiple tiers. Once you’ve used up all the potato, cover the top with baking parchment and cook for about 3 hours until the potatoes are completely tender. Place a small baking tray or plate on top of the baking parchment covering the potatoes, along with a few heavy weights (we find tins work well) and leave to cool, then refrigerate overnight to compress.

The next day, remove from the tray and cut the potato into 3x3cm pieces.

Heat enough oil for deep-fat frying to 190°C, either in a deep fryer or a heavy-based saucepan. Fry the pieces for about 4 minutes until croissant-gold. Sprinkle over some Maldon salt, drizzle with mustard dressing and eat immediately.

Mustard Dressing

This may look fairly prosaic but it’s completely crucial in our kitchen. No confit potato leaves the pass until it has been dressed in this, so if you want yours to be the real deal you will need this dressing too. (Though you won't probably need quite this much! FB)

425g Dijon mustard

Juice of ½ lemon

½ tsp cider vinegar

375ml vegetable oil

Mix the mustard, lemon juice and vinegar in a large bowl, then whisk in the vegetable oil until emulsified. Store in squeezy bottles in the fridge until you’re ready to use.

What to drink: You're probably going to serve these wonders with something - most probably a steak or chops so your wine choice is most likely to be dictated by that - most probably red. But if you were serving them on their own - and why not? - I'd be tempted by a glass (or two) of champagne

This recipe is from THE QUALITY CHOP HOUSE: Modern Recipes and Stories from a London Classic by William Lander, Daniel Morgenthau & Shaun Searley (Quadrille, £30) Photography: Andrew Montgomery