'Potato Pete & Tracy Truffle' by Marianne Lumb

Marianne Lumb

Marianne Lumb

4th September 2018
Marianne Lumb

'Potato Pete & Tracy Truffle' by Marianne Lumb

This is my starter recipe for Great British Menu 2018. Let’s start with the beginning of the NHS. 1948 was a time of austerity. Rationing was still a massive part of life in the UK. Potato Pete and Captain Carrot were created and introduced as characters to encourage the people of the UK to eat vegetables. This dish is a nod to the humble ingredients of the time. I’m taking the best potatoes I can find and turning them into a dish fit for a king. Adorned with truffles. As that’s what the doctors and nurses of the NHS deserve.

Ingredients

  • Serves 8
  • For the onion confit
  • 8 Breme onions / Roscoff onions
  • 10 sprigs of thyme
  • 100g unsalted butter
  • For the potato foam:
  • 4kg medium baking potatoes (spunta and Catriona)
  • 2 litre double cream
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • Ground white pepper
  • Maldon salt
  • To serve:
  • Perigord verjus
  • White truffle oil
  • Perigord truffle
  • Dried potato skin
  • Puff pastry discs (made beforehand)

Method

1. Preheat an oven to 190°C and bake the potatoes for 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven, take out the flesh and then put the skins back into the oven. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.
2. Meanwhile, chop the onion into perfect brunoise, cook for 1 hour very slowly in the butter with the thyme.
3. Roughly chop the potato skins and place half in pan with double cream bring to the boil and simmer for 25 – 30 minutes, not too quickly or it will split.
Continue to dry the other half and then blitz to a powder in the thermomix.
4. Bake the puff pastry discs.
5. When the cream is thoroughly infused, press through a sieve well and pass into a pan. Check the seasoning and acidity and adjust as necessary with lemon juice and salt. Transfer to a foam gun. Add two pellets.
6. Season the onions, place in a bowl then cover with foam, cover with a little potato powder and then cover with the sliced truffles.

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