Hasselback dauphinoise potatoes

When Marcus Bawdon asked me to write an autumnal recipe for UKBBQ Mag I quickly worked out I wanted to go for Pork three ways. But the hardest thing to decide was what to serve with it – it took a little while, but once we had chosen it was obvious we had a winner – hasselback “hedgehog” dauphinoise.

I knew I wanted to go with a potato dish, but I wanted to do something exciting and a little different. A friend, Gav Austin, the chef at the club, suggested Hasselback potatoes. I was immediately interested! When I tried to explain how to make them to my wife, I think I must have mumbled slightly and she only heard the bit about slicing the potatoes, saying, “you mean like dauphinoise, but on its side.” It was inspired!

The end result was a decadent creamy base, with a crisp crunchy topping; a showstopper in it’s own right but a great to compliment to almost any dish – it worked beautifully with our bacon wrapped stuffed pork tenderloin.

makes enough for a 27x18cm roasting dish

INGREDIENTS

Hasselback dauphinoise potatoes:

• potatoes 1200g
• double cream, 500g
• salt
• pepper
• 1 garlic clove

METHOD

Bring your oven/bbq up to 180C – if using the bbq, set up for indirect cooking.

Peel and thinly slice your potatoes. A mandolin can guarantee a consistent thickness and makes life a lot easier.

In a large bowl, pour in your cream and season well – can’t really season too much! Throw your potatoes into the bowl and mix until every potato is coated on all sides.

Peel your garlic and rub your roasting dish all over.

Take handfuls of the cream potato mixture and stack vertically in your roasting dish. Once finished, pour over a little more of the leftover cream until it’s a 1/3 – 1/2 way up the side of the dish.

Season and top with a few slivers of butter.

Once your oven/bbq is up to temperature, place your roasting dish inside.

After 30 minutes, remove the foil cover. Roast for another hour.

We like to grate some cheese over the dish 30 minutes before the end – in this cook we used some comté but parmesan and most cheddars would work perfectly.

After 1 hour 30 minutes total cooking time you should have a beautifully crisp topping with cream bubbling out of the base.

Remove from the cooker and leave to cool for a couple of minutes before serving.

Served alongside bacon wrapped stuffed pork tenderloin with crunchy green beans and a cider and apple purée.