FLOWER POT KITCHEN: LEFT OVER CURRY POTATO CAKES

7 Dec 2016

LEFT OVER CURRY POTATO CAKES

LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS

I love love love it when my fridge is full of leftovers, it opens up the possibilities to endless creativity and new family favourites. This is a fabulous leftover curry breakfast treat of comforting curried spiced potato and a rich and creamy soft poached egg, perfect together and with a handful of watercress and spinach its super good for you too.

Prep Time 5 minutes / Cooking Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

(makes 4)

400g leftover potato aloo curry

(or any vegetable curry)

4 tbsp ghee

1 cup potato flour for dusting

4 eggs

50ml white wine vinegar

Sea Salt

1 bunch watercress

200g fresh spinach

1. Take your left over vegetable curry and crush with a fork or potato masher roughly, you want to keep some lumps for texture, season with a little sea salt, at this point you could add the spinach and watercress in to the potato cake but I like to eat my curried potato cake as all potato.

2. Dust your hands with a little potato flour and scoop up 1/4 of the potato mix and form in to a compact potato cake, dust with a little more flour, repeat and make the next three.

3. Heat a skillet to a medium hot heat, add the ghee and once hot place the four potato cakes in the skillet and pan fry, don't be tempted to touch and turn the cakes until you are sure that they have formed a good crust with lots of pan seared flavour around 4-5 minutes, turn and cook the other side for about 4 minutes then the potato cakes are ready to serve, so meanwhile...

4. Fill a large deep pan of water and bring to a gentle simmer, add the white wine vinegar, crack the eggs in to individual small bowls or tea cups, whisk the water in the saucepan to create a gentle vortex in the centre and then gently one at a time slide each egg in to the centre of the vortex while it is still spinning, leave to cook on a medium heat for around 3-5 minutes depending on how runny you like your yolk, I lift out the poached egg and give a little prod, the more jelly wobbly the prod the more cooking required, but if you like a runny yolk you need a bit of a wobbly in the prob if you have a bouncy prod then that egg is hard boiled.

5. Serve your potato cake on a bed of watercress and spinach with the poached egg on top and the best part of the eating is when you pop the poached egg and the glorious creamy yolk becomes a rich sauce that marries up the whole dish.

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.