Mustard With Mutton

I’m always searching for different potato recipes to add to our rotation and one classic I forgot about, until a recent holiday, is Lyonnaise potatoes. Crispy buttery potato discs with sweet caramelised onions, I can’t tell you how seriously delicious these are – so much so that it’s the only potato dish I’ve made for the last few weeks. When I searched for  recipes on-line I noticed nearly all of them required the potatoes to be pan fried. I’m not a fan of crisping up potatoes on the stove top. They need too much looking after and let’s face it when you’re trying to juggle various elements to bring dinner together you don’t want to be flipping and frying potatoes as well. So I decided to make my own version that are oven baked. The potatoes are sliced and par boiled then roasted. You caramelise some onions beforehand and then stir them through the potatoes in the last 10 minutes in the oven. All the prep can be done earlier in the day and the potatoes popped into the oven an hour before you want to eat. This is one you have to try!

Ingredients – serves 3-4, depending on how greedy you are
1kg yellow fleshed potatoes (large fingerlings are good), peeled and sliced – not too thin
2 good sized onions, peeled and sliced into thin round moons
Light olive oil or vegetable oil
2-3 tablespoons butter
Salt & pepper

Method
Preheat oven to 220C. Rinse the sliced potatoes in a couple of changes of cold water. Place them into a saucepan and cover with cold water and a couple of teaspoons of salt. Bring to the boil and cook for a 2 minutes then drain.

Place enough oil in a shallow sided baking tray/sheet (non stick is best) until you have a thin coating on the bottom of the pan. You want to use a tray that will fit the potatoes snugly with most of the potatoes in one layer or only slight overlapping. Drizzle some more oil on top and season with some salt and pepper. Dice the butter and scatter over the potatoes. You can make it to this point ahead of time if you wish.  Place in the oven and roast for 25 minutes.

Whilst the potatoes are roasting, heat a few tablespoons of oil in a non stick skillet or frypan and add the onions along with a pinch of salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring the onions regularly, to ensure even browning until they are nicely golden and staring to caramelise. You don’t want to get them too dark as they’ll finish cooking in the oven.

After the potatoes have had their first 25 minutes of cooking, turn them over gently and roast for a further 20 minutes or until the potatoes are mostly golden and crispy. Add the cooked onions and stir them gently through the potatoes and cook for a further  10 minutes.