I had fun and learned a bit during Michel Roux Jr’s recent cooking demo at Whole Foods Market Kensington. Accompanied on stage by WFM head chef Gerry Beck, Roux worked his way through three tasty and simple potato recipes, including a one pot casserole; a warm cockle, clam and potato salad; and crushed garlicky rooster potatoes in their skin.
I can vouch for the ease and yumminess of the crushed potatoes recipe, which I cooked at home last weekend. Ingredients include garlic, butter, parsley, shallots, pastis and – of course – potatoes. So, if you already have a bottle of pastis sitting around, this is a really inexpensive dish. And if you don’t have a bottle of pastis sitting around, you’re missing out on a particularly refreshing tipple. I used Ricard when making my version of Roux’s dish and was pleased with how it helped to flavour the dish.
With only these six ingredients (okay, eight if you count the salt and pepper) and just a handful of basic steps to follow, I found this recipe offered especially tasty value for minimal effort. Not much clean up afterward either. As the name implies, this dish is a garlic lover’s treat. I reckon you could tone down the amount of garlic suggested and still be happy with the results. An additional splash or two of the pastis wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I’m pretty sure I’ll make this dish – or a very similar variant – again soon.
You can find the crushed garlicky rooster potatoes recipe at the Albert Bartlett website. Supplying one in five of Britain’s potatoes, Albert Bartlett have a number of recipes by Roux and other ambassador chefs on its site.
Visit wholefoodsmarket.com/events for info about upcoming cooking demos and more.
