25 Sept 2013

spring harvest

Recently my sister has been very busy at school cultivating organic vegetables. So far she's brought home a variety of vegetables, herbs and conversation about her hard work. Last week she pulled out a couple of interesting shaped carrots for a carrot cake. Leaves from the carrot tops make really neat garnishes! We also had some broad beans from the school garden as part of our dinner tonight. 

She doesn't grow potatoes though. Ok, she does now apparently. We lugged a 5kg bag of baby potatoes from the market this week and I've been making an adaption of kartoffelsalat (German potato salad) for dinner this week. Something different to the usual roast potatoes. Any ideas for the remaining potatoes? 

♥ ♥ ♥

roast potato salad     serves 4 as a side

I made two versions of this potato salad this week. The first with the traditional components of bacon and onion, the second with some orange sweet potato. I've combined the recipes together, but feel free to adapt to what you have on hand.

15 - 20 baby potatoes
3 orange sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
unsalted butter, as required
glug of Kikkoman soy sauce
aonori or dried parsley, as required 
1/2 a small onion, sliced thinly
2 slices of shortcut bacon, cut into thin strips

Wash the baby potatoes and shave off the eyes/sprouts if there is any. Bring to the boil with the sweet potatoes and boil until a chopstick can go through*. Drain and leave to dry.

Once ready to cook, transfer baby potatoes to a baking tray and put some thinly sliced butter on top. Bake at 200 degrees celcius, turning every 15 minutes until potatoes are soft. Make a cut in the potatoes and split open. Add the sweet potatoes. Drizzle soy sauce over the top and leave in the oven for 10 more minutes. Meanwhile, saute onion and bacon with some cooking oil until browned. Sprinkle potatoes with a few good pinches of aonori/dried parsley and scatter the sauteed onion and bacon on top.

*If you are using sweet potato, they should be soft before draining.