Blue potato and garlic confit with smoked mackerel mousse

Blue potatoes make a great potato confit. A few farmers at my local Saturday morning farmers´market are selling blue potatoes. Occasionally red flesh potatoes can be found. There are a couple of varieties of blue potatoes, the more frequent (I wanted to say common, but blue potatoes are not really common, are they) one sold here is called Blauer St Gallener or sometimes St. Gallerli, whereby the "-li" ending denotes the diminutive form in Swiss German. And the diminutive is spot on because the tubers are generally small. Just right for cooking potato confit.

Potato confit, simply put, is cooking potatoes in fat or oil at low temperature. Seasoning with fresh herbs and garlic adds the extra flavour and best of all while the potatoes are cooking in the oven the smells coming from the kitchen are tickling the senses in anticipation of a great meal.

Small Blaue St Gallerli with rosemary and garlic ready for potato confit

Blue Potato Confit
Ingredients for 2-3 portions:
1 kg small blue potatoes, thoroughly washed, unpeeled
2 garlic bulbs
fresh rosmary
4dl olive oil
sea salt

A confidently generous amount of garlic recommended

Heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius / 350 F
1. Place the rosemary sprigs and potatoes into an oven form. I prefer 2 smaller forms instead of one larger form to keep the oil level high and potatoes compactly together.
2. Cut the bottom of the garlic bulb off and spread the cloves between the potatoes.
3. Cook the potatoes in the oven for ca. 1 hour until soft.
4. To serve cut a cross on one side of the potato and press the potato together slightly to "open" it.
5. Remove the garlic from the skins and serve too. The garlic confit has a slightly sweet taste.
6. Season with sea salt.

I keep the oil, now fragrant with garlic and rosemary, and use it later for cooking. For example it gives an extra flavour to risotto.

 

Smoked Mackerel Mousse
This is a simple way to prepare a smooth mackerel mousse or spread that can be used on a sandwich or as an accompaniment to the succulent potato confit.

Ingredients:
1 smoked mackerel, ca. 300g
1 tbsp capers, finely chopped
3-4 tbsp sour cream
chives, finely chopped

1. Carefully clean the mackerel from skin and bones. Place the fish into a bowl and mix with a fork to prepare a smooth consistency.
2. Add the chopped capers to the fish.
3. Combine the sour cream with mackerel and capers into a smooth mousse.
4. Serve with chives.

Baked Sweet Potato Dessert

My work has brought me to researching the baked potato growing in the past year. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a warm climate loving vegetable, botanically not related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). I found out that in many countries sweet potatoes are grown by small farms and consumed a lot as street food. Often simply baked and as a dessert rather than as a savoury dish. In Europe it is grown on a small scale in south of Spain and in south of Portugal.

The sweet potato growing industry is getting more focus, meaning that more resources are spent on research and variety development. The growing consumer demand is driving larger scale industrial farming of sweet potato. I have seen sweet potatoes imported from Isreael, USA, Spain, Egypt on sale in supermarkets and farmers´markets here in Switzerland. The global easy access to exotic fruits and vegetables and the pressure on innovation has placed sweet potatoes into most new cookbooks. The wider awareness of the American Thanksgiving dinner outside the United States has brought the sweet potato onto dinner tables in Europe. Sweet potato crisps can be found in niche selection in supermarkets or eco-groceries.

I felt it my duty to get to know the vegetable I was researching a bit closer. I can say that sweet potato is great in soups, a delicious accompaniment to roasted lamb and a Thanksgiving turkey.

 

 

Baked Sweet Potato Dessert
Ingredients for one portion (multiply by as many portions as needed)
1 sweet potato per person, ca. 100g each
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp crème fraîche

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Wash the sweet potatoes and pat them dry with kitchen paper.
3. Stab each sweet potato twice with a fork.
4. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 60 minutes until you can feel they are soft.
5. Cut them in half, spread 1 table spoon of honey on each half and serve with crème fraîche.

The effort in preparation of this dessert is almost next to nothing. Bake the sweet potatoes in the oven while preparing the rest of the meal and spreading a bit of honey and cream is a matter of two minutes. Worth a try.