Pork, potato, pesto

It was actually lamb but I like the alliteration so much that I‘ll pretend it’s pork.

Having fried up the chops and mashed up the potato it’s just drizzling pesto over the potato; since it was lamb a bit of mint in the pesto would have been interesting but I decided not to do that (since I had no mint at home).  Pesto on potato is not something I’d run into before; it works really well – and lots healthier than butter I imagine.

Mashed Potatoes

This is simple enough – but done very well.  Mashed potatoes; but cooked in a chicken consumé (just barely enough – or a little less), mashed (with the consumé), and served with smoked bacon (big chunks. not slices).

That takes an ordinary dish and turns it into something special.   It was the 1st course at the local café for lunch yesterday.

English-Style Boiled Potatoes : Pommes à l'Anglaise : Lesson 8 : Part 2 : LCB at Home

Not the most exciting recipe in the book (the book being...Le Cordon Bleu: At Home). The effort is in "turning" the potatoes not in the cooking of them. The turning being a particular form of peeling and forming into a sort of seven-sided barrel shape.

With fresh chopped parsley. Quite good.

Instructions:

1) Shape unpeeled potatoes into barrel forms (7 sided), 2) Boil in salted water (maybe 10 minutes), 3) Sprinkle parsley. Done.

Notes:

1. Peeled potatoes can be held in/under water for quite a while
2. Buy small round waxy potatoes (I got red ones)
3. Cut fat oval potatoes in half vertically to make 2 "turned" potatoes out of each one
4. The skin peeled off will have a lot of potato on it - not to worry - see next note
5. Boil the "peelings" separately, the next day ("hold" them in a bowl of water in the 'fridge), until soft - mix/mash with about 20% by volume of butter and 10% of cream to make Creamy Potatoes (add salt & pepper). The skins give the potato "meat" some texture. Very nice.

One potato - you can sort of see the barrel shape of this one.