My mum used to make a potato dish called Potato Dauphinoise, a rich, luxurious dish with cream, garlic and sometimes cheese all layered together and baked until soft and creamy. It was a treat and usually confined to special occasions. I once made a version with both sweet potato and regular potatoes from a recipe in a Thanksgiving issue of Gourmet magazine. Cave aged Gruyere was used to help glue the layers together and create a cheesy sauce that was heaven, but only to be consumed in meagre portions.
I don't know where I got the idea of using milk and stock together from, or why I thought it was called potato Anna. Pommes Anna is a dish made with only potatoes and butter, you can see for yourself here and contains no milk or stock whatsoever. It just goes to show how recipes and ideas can get changed and lost through the Chinese whisper system of passing them down through the generations.
I have some sea salt that is spiked with saffron. I admit I have become a little obsessed with it, liberally sprinkling it on things just to get that pretty yellow hue. I forget that saffron has quite a robust and distinctive flavour too and often add a little too much, masking other delicate ingredients. With potatoes, however, it works well, adding another earthy dimension to the potatoes and a little warm, honey flavour and scent and, of course, who can deny the beauty of pale potatoes striped and speckled with pale sunshine yellow and crimson.
A recipe inspired by Rachel Ray accompanied the potatoes. The smallest and therefore, cutest piece of roasting pork ever seen was for sale at one of my local supermarkets. Covered in a puree of onion, sage, garlic and oil, it was roasted for 40 minutes only and basted frequently and still managed to somehow be verging on the edge of dry. The North Americans have the right idea with their pot roast, especially if there is lots of liquid involved. The British way of cooking all joints of meat in a hot, dry roasting oven has all but destroyed several of my dinners that required more of a braise than a blast.
The puree on top was eventually stirred into the juices to create an incredibly flavourful gravy that tasted a little like stuffing, the traditional British sage and onion variety.
I used golden beets which added to the sunshine yellow of the dish along with the saffron. If you used red beets, along with the yellow saffron, you may get streaks of orange and crimson, although probably the red in the beets would simply turn everything the vividest cerise. Either way, I love beets not just for their earthy, sweet taste but also for the fun that can be had using them as dyes for food.
Recipe : Beet and potato bake with saffron, fennel & sage
2 potatoes, peeled
1 beet, peeled
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped finely
1/2 tbsp fresh fennel, chopped finely
a few pinches of saffron strands
1 tsp salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup chicken stock
Slice the beet and potato into very thin slices. Butter or oil the bottom of a baking dish and lay about 1/3 of the potatoes slices into the dish in one layer. Season with some of the salt and some pepper, a few strands of saffron and 1/3 of the herbs.
Next, arrange 1/3 of the beet slices on top and then repeat with another 1/3 of potatoes, seasoning with salt, pepper, saffron and herbs again. Repeat until all potatoes and beet slices are used. Mix the milk and stock together and pour into the baking dish, covering the potatoes and beets. Finish with another good seasoning and bake at 375oF for about 1 hour until soft and all liquid evaporated.
Ideally, you want the liquid to come about 1/2 way up the beets and potatoes in the dish. If there is too much liquid, simply use less.
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