Parmentier Potatoes

I've been brought up on home cooked meals, so I've not always been huge on shop-bought ready meals. However, I always enjoyed buying pre-made parmentier potatoes from the supermarket and I alwys thought them to be more hassle to make than enough, One day, however, one day I decided to bite the bullet and have a go at making my own version. The result was seven kinds of awesome and I've never looked back. Shop bought are nice, but these, for me, are on another level. Subsequently, this has become one of my favourite potato recipes, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Ingredients: 8 Medium Sized Potatoes 4-6 Slices Bacon Butter Olive Oil 20cm Sprig of Fresh Rosemary (Chopped) 1 1/2 Tbsp Chopped Fresh Thyme Salt Pepper Grated Parmesan Cheese

Method:

1. Peel the potatoes, and cut them into 1cm cubes and place in a bowl of water to remove a little of the starch. Chop the Bacon into small chunks.
2. Melt a little butter and oil in a large, deep-sided saucepan and fry the bacon until cooked but not crispy. Remove from the pan and set to one side.
3. Melt some more butter (around about a 5-10 gram chunk) in the same saucepan with a little more oil for about five minutes.
4. Mix in the chopped herbs and season with a little salt (not too much as the butter and bacon will add a certain amount of salt content) and plenty of ground black pepper. Continue to fry the potatoes until they're softened and have begun to brown.
5. Next add in about 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese and return the bacon to the man. Mix thoroughly and remove from the heat.
6. Line a baking tray with some baking parchment and spread the potatoes across the pan in a single layer. Sprinkle with some more parmesan cheese to give an extra crisp.
7. Bake in the oven at about 180C for 20-30 minutes or until nicely browned and crispy. Make sure to shuffle the potatoes on the tray every now and again to ensure that they cook evenly and don't stick to the paper or burn.

Breakfast Fried Rice

This is one of my ultimate comfort foods. Fried rice is such a versatile meal, and frankly you can pretty much put what you like in it. I got the inspiration for this particular incarnation of the dish when looking through one of Ching He Huang's cookbooks. In there she had a recipe for Salmon and Egg fried rice and a Sausage, Green Pepper, Tomato, and Pineapple fried rice under the breakfast section. After looking at these thinking that they were odd, yet oddly yummy sounding combinations, and I figured, well why not combine Chinese Fried Rice with a Full English Breakfast, and thus the breakfast fried rice was born. Now, it may seem a bit odd to put ketchup in fried rice, but it's not a completely foreign concept as one of the flavourings in the Japanese dish, Omurice (Fried rice encased in omelette) is ketchup. It's a really easy dish to make, yet it is so tasty, and well worth a try if you like the sound of it.

Ingredients: 3 Sausages 200g Rice Groundnut Oil 3 Eggs (Beaten) 4 Rashers of Bacon (Cut into strips) A Few Shiitake Mushrooms (Chopped) 2 Tbsp Tomato Ketchup 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce A Drizzle of Toasted Sesame Oil Black Pepper This dish should serve 2 people as a main meal, but it's also good for one person, which would leave a good portion for lunch another day. Simply reheat in the microwave and it will be good as new.

Method:

1. Place the sausages on a baking tray and cook in the oven for about twenty minutes. Remove from the baking tray and cut into thick slices about 1 - 1.5 cm thick and set to one side.
2. In the meantime, bring some water to the boil in a saucepan. As it reaches a rolling boil add in the rice, stirring to ensure it doesn't clump together. Cook until tender and strain.
3. Heat a little groundnut oil in a wok and when hot, tip in the beaten eggs. Stir the eggs with a spatula and keep them moving. As soon as they start to harden and scramble, remove them from the wok and put them to one side. If using a wok that's smoking this should take less than a minute.
4. Put the wok back onto the heat and add in the bacon - there's no need to add more oil as enough fat will come out of the bacom. As they start to cook add in the sliced sausages, then add in the chopped mushrooms. Once cooked, remove from the pan and place on a plate. It may seem like a pain removing all this, but it makes it easier to coat the rice in the flavours.
5. Add a little more groundnut oil to the wok and put over a gentle heat. Add in the cooked rice and stir. Season the rice with a the tomato ketchup, light soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and a good pinch of ground black pepper. Don't overdo the seasoning. Too much ketchup and it will dominate the flavour, likewise too much Soy Sauce and the dish will be far too salty. Mix thoroughly to fully coat the rice.
6. Return the bacon, sausage, mushroom and egg to the wok and heat through. Finally, serve and enjoy!