Baked Potatoes with Maldon Sea Salt
Sydney Opera House Roast Potatoes
Cracked Potatoes with Guacamole
Potato Rösti with Field Mushrooms and Bacon
Greek Potato Salad with Coriander
Lots of people grow a few new potatoes in Mousehole. Some are lucky enough to have an allotment or vegetable garden or use a corner of the flower garden. But I’ve seen potatoes growing in (highly desirable) discarded butler’s sinks and in old dustbins. I’ve even seen them growing in one of the dark back alleys in a specially designed stout green bin made in the style of a parsley crock, with slits at intervals out of which the sturdy leaves seek the light of day.
Cornish new potatoes, particularly those grown close to the sea, with a southerly aspect to the land and light soils which warm up early, can be planted in December and are ready for harvesting in early April, sometimes even earlier. You see neatly tucked furrows of polythene-covered potatoes in fields around the village and you can hear the bedding crackling in the wind. The first time I was struck by their delicious flavour was at a special awards lunch given by Rick Stein soon after the Seafood Restaurant won its first accolade in the seventies. The potatoes had that special just-dug, intense potato flavour, rather like the best Jersey Royals. Royden keeps me supplied with new potatoes from his perfectly located allotment overlooking the sea. Otherwise I buy from the Mousehole shop, which has a fast turnover of local new potatoes still earthy from the ground.
Cornish maincrop potatoes taste good too, and when the Fish Store is in full-on entertaining mode it is worth buying a big sack direct from the farm or from a roadside sale.
Potatoes, incidentally, are 81 per cent water, fat-free (that’s why they need butter and cheese), high in vitamin C and have low levels of vitamins B1 and B6. They contain trace elements including folic acid, potassium and, of course, fibre. An average serving without add-ons averages 150 calories.
Champ is extra-luscious mashed potato made with spring onions cooked in the mashing milk. Many vegetables and other flavourings go well with mashed potato. Apple gives it a lightness, parsnip makes it sweeter and spinach, nettles and parsley, sweated first in butter, turn it green. Saffron turns it pale yellow and so does Dijon mustard, but the flavours are quite different. Mash is also delicious with a topping of slowly cooked caramelized onion. Try it with roast cod or a similar white fish, or with sausages, chops or roast chicken.
2 large onions
100g butter
1 tbsp vegetable oil
8 decent-sized mealy potatoes, preferably Irish or King Edward
100g bunch spring onions
225ml milk
salt and pepper
Peel, halve and finely slice the onions. Heat 50g butter and 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in a frying pan over a high heat and, when the butter is bubbling, stir in the onions. Cook, tossing constantly, for about 5 minutes until the onions are starting to wilt and brown. Turn the heat down low and leave to cook very gently while you attend to the potatoes.
In Ireland, potatoes are always cooked in their skins, drained and then left in the hot pan for the skins to dry and crack before they are peeled away and the potatoes mashed. As most of the goodness in potatoes lies just beneath the skin, this makes sense. Either do it the Irish way or peel, chunk and rinse the potatoes and boil in salted water until tender. Drain and mash the potatoes, preferably passing them through a vegetable press (Mouli-legumes).
While the potatoes cook, trim and slice the spring onions, including all the dark green. Place in a pan with the milk and simmer until tender. Tip the milk, onion and 25g of the butter into the mash and beat with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the mash in a mound, top with the remaining butter and cover with the onions. Serve immediately.
I am a baked potato addict. I’m always trying out slightly different ways of cooking them and this one, when the potatoes are cut in half and dipped in Maldon sea salt, is an all-time favourite. I put them in a cold oven turned to its highest setting and speed up the cooking by rubbing the potatoes with olive oil and laying them on a foil-lined oven tray. Cutting tramlines or a criss-cross pattern gives them an even better crusty finish and looks very pretty.
Never throw away leftover baked potatoes. Pop them back in the oven for 10 minutes or so when you need them and they will be perfect. This is worth remembering if you are cooking jacket potatoes for a party: cook them in advance and reheat as and when required.
12 medium-sized potatoes
approx. 50ml olive oil
Maldon sea salt flakes
you will also need tinfoil
Turn the oven to its highest setting and line a roasting tin with tinfoil. Tip some of the Maldon salt flakes on to a plate. Cut the potatoes in half lengthways. If liked, cut a shallow criss-cross without cutting the skin. Pour some of the oil into the palm of one hand and roll the potatoes through the oil, then dip the cut edge in salt and lay it cut-side uppermost on the foil-lined tin.
Don’t wait for the oven to come up to temperature before cooking. Check for doneness after 30 minutes.
The best roast potatoes have shaggy, crusty outsides and fluffy insides. Most recipes suggest parboiling them, but I like the results when the potatoes are completely cooked and a bit waterlogged and beginning to break down. Roughing them up a bit in a colander is another good way of encouraging rough surfaces that will crisp up in the oven. Running a fork over boiled potatoes makes lovely fluffy edges. It’s unfashionable to collect dripping these days, but beef or pork dripping was once used for roasting potatoes. Goose fat gives the finest results and you can buy that in cans.
I often add scraps of bacon for the last 10 minutes of roasting if the potatoes are going with chicken, along with blanched, peeled garlic cloves. Peeled pickling onions, unpeeled garlic cloves and aromatic herbs such as rosemary and thyme are other good additions. The smaller you cut the potatoes, the faster they cook; this is another way of ringing the changes with roast potatoes. One favourite way is to cut the potatoes small, roast them until golden and then strew with finely chopped garlic mixed with flat-leaf parsley or rosemary, sometimes adding lemon zest too.
9 (or more) large potatoes
salt and pepper
dripping, lard or olive oil
Scrub the potatoes but don’t bother to peel them. Cook in salted boiling water until tender and their skins are beginning to burst. Drain and leave to cool slightly before peeling. Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6.
Heat a decent amount of dripping, lard or oil in a roasting tin in the oven. Cut the potatoes in half, arrange in the hot oil and roll through it until covered. Run a fork down the length of each potato a couple of times to make furrows. Return the tin to the oven and cook, turning once during cooking, for 45–60 minutes, depending on size and what else is in the oven, until crusty and golden. Season with salt and pepper before serving.
These are my ‘posh’ roast potatoes and this is the only time I don’t boil potatoes for roasting. Slicing down the golden-brown crusty layers of the ‘opera house’ is particularly pleasing.
9 (or more) medium-sized potatoes
olive oil
Peel the potatoes and cut in half through their middles. Use a small sharp knife. Stand the potato on its flat surface and make diagonal slashes approximately 1cm apart, cutting halfway through the potato. Leave to soak in cold water for at least 15 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Oil a roasting tin and stand the potatoes in the tin. Paint the ‘opera house’ lavishly with olive oil. Cook in the oven without moving for 1 hour, checking after 40 minutes, until the potatoes are golden and the slices fanning slightly.
No one can get enough of these potatoes. They are quick to prepare and cook and they go with everything. The flavour can be fine-tuned with other assertively flavoured soft herbs such as rosemary (which should be chopped to dust, otherwise it gets caught in the teeth), thyme and flat-leaf parsley. Garlic and lemon zest (also chopped to dust) are good, too. What you use depends on what you intend to eat them with. Because the potatoes are cooked at such a high temperature, it’s essential to cook them in a heavyweight roasting tin to avoid buckling.
4 potatoes, approx. 200g each
olive oil
salt and pepper
4 tbsp chopped chives
Finely slice the washed but unpeeled potatoes as if making crisps. If you don’t have a suitable attachment on a food processor, the next best thing to use is a mandoline (a blade set in a metal or wood frame), or, failing that, it can be done (very frustratingly) on the cucumber slicer at the side of a box cheese grater. It’s hard to get the slices thin enough with a knife and they need to be fairly uniform. Rinse and pat dry.
Smear one or more 5cm deep heavyweight roasting pans approx. 37 × 27cm with a little of the oil. Add the potatoes and the rest of the oil. Toss thoroughly to coat with oil, then spread out evenly. Roast for 15 minutes until crisp and golden. You might need to turn the pan round or turn some potatoes during the cooking. Don’t worry about them cooking unevenly: you just want to end up with plenty of crusty edges but a bit of soft middle.
Remove from the oven, rest for a couple of minutes (this helps loosen stuck potato) and use a fish slice to chase them off the pan. Sprinkle with chives, season with salt and pepper and toss before serving.
I came across this way of cooking small, new potatoes years ago in a small and modest café-restaurant near Balmoral beach on the outskirts of Sydney. They called them New York fries and served them with a big scoop of crème fraîche. The combination of tongue-scorchingly hot crusty potatoes and cold slippery cream was utterly compulsive. Back home, I matched them with guacamole and have been making the combo regularly ever since. They are great alone but go well with simply cooked salmon or white fish and are an excellent accompaniment to whole poached chicken.
1kg ready-washed baby new potatoes
Maldon sea salt flakes and black pepper
2 large or 4 small ripe avocados
2 limes
3 medium tomatoes
1 small red onion
1 or 2 red bird’s eye chillies
1 large garlic clove
handful of coriander leaves
oil for deep frying
Boil the potatoes in plenty of salted water for about 10 minutes until tender. Drain and leave to cool while you make the guacamole. Run a sharp knife round the length of the avocados. Twist apart and remove the stone. Dice the avocados in their shells, then use a spoon to scoop all the flesh into a bowl. Squeeze over the juice of one lime. Season with salt and pepper. Use a small sharp knife to remove the core from the tomatoes in a small, pointed plug shape. Halve the tomatoes, slice in strips and then into small dice. Peel, halve and finely chop the onion. Add tomatoes, their juices and the onion to the avocado. Trim and split the chillies. Scrape away the seeds. Slice into skinny strips and then into tiny dice. Peel and chop the garlic. Sprinkle with a little salt and use the flat of a knife to work to a paste. Stir the garlic into the avocado, coarsely mashing the fruit as you do so; you want it lumpy rather than smooth. Add the tomatoes, onion and chilli to the avocado and mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and more lime. Stir in the coriander. Cover with cling-film, allowing it to sag against the guacamole, if you need to keep it waiting for more than 30 minutes. This stops the avocado turning black.
Use your thumbnails to split the potatoes in half. It’s important not to use a knife for this because you want to achieve an uneven, slightly shaggy edge to the potato halves. Get the oil really hot, deep-fry the potatoes in batches – overcrowding will stop them browning evenly – and cook until really crusty. Drain on kitchen paper, tip into a serving bowl, sprinkle with salt and keep warm in the oven. Serve crusty hot potatoes and cold, chilli-hot guacamole together.
The ultimate potato gratin, originally from the Alps and adopted throughout France. The business. It is hard to believe that potatoes and cream could taste so good.
750g potatoes
1 garlic clove
50g butter
salt and pepper
400ml thick cream or crème fraîche
freshly grated nutmeg
Pre-heat the oven to 325°F/175°C/gas mark 3.
Thinly slice the potatoes (I use a mandoline rather than a knife), soak in cold water and drain. Crush the garlic with your fist and rub it all over the inside of a suitable gratin dish, then smear it with about half the butter. Make layers with the potatoes, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper and the final layer with nutmeg and adding a few scraps of butter, filling the dish to approximately 1.5cm from the top. The gratin should be about 5cm deep. Heat up the cream and pour it over the top. Cook for approximately 1½ hours. During the last 10 minutes of cooking, turn the oven up fairly high to get a fine golden crust on the potatoes.
Pithiviers is the name of a distinctively etched puff-pastry pie filled with almond cream. This one is made with sliced potato cooked in cream seasoned with garlic, bay and nutmeg. It’s a fabulous dish to make for a party, picnic or barbecue and is good hot, warm or cold.
2 garlic cloves
600ml thick cream or half-cream, half-milk
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
nutmeg
900g potatoes
25g butter
flour for dusting
500g puff pastry
1 egg beaten with 2 tbsp milk
Peel and finely chop the garlic. Place the cream in a large saucepan – later it will also hold the potatoes – with the bay leaf and garlic. Season generously with salt and pepper and add nutmeg. Bring to the boil gently (to avoid scorching the bottom), then turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes to thicken slightly. Turn off the heat and cover the pan for the flavours to infuse.
Meanwhile, peel and slice the potatoes very thinly, about the thickness of a £1 coin, then rinse and drain. Stir the potatoes into the cream and simmer for 15–20 minutes until the potatoes are tender to the point of a knife. Cool slightly.
Lavishly butter a 25.5cm × 5cm deep flan tin/pie dish with a removable base, dust with flour and shake away the excess to make it non-stick. Set aside one-third of the pastry. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the larger piece to fit the pie tin with a generous overhang.
Roll out the reserved pastry and cut it to make a generous-sized lid. Pour the cooled potato and cream mixture into the pastry case and fold the edges over, nipping and tucking to prevent leakages – this is very important. Use a pastry brush to paint the dough flaps with egg wash, then cut and fit the lid. Paint the lid with the rest of the egg wash. Use a small sharp knife to etch a pattern into the pastry.
Pre-heat the oven to 475°F/240°C/gas mark 8 and place a pastry sheet in the middle. Put the pie on the hot pastry sheet – this ensures the pastry base cooks thoroughly – and cook for 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 325°F/160°C/gas mark 3 and bake for a further 45 minutes. Remove the pie from the oven, discard the collar and slip the pie on to a plate.
It is incredible that slices of potato layered up with onion, butter and thyme taste so delicious. Lovely with lamb.
800g medium large potatoes
2 large onions, approx. 400g in total
salt and pepper
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
100g butter
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Peel or scrape the potatoes, then slice wafer-thin as if you were making crisps. Use a mando-line or the appropriate slicer attachment of your food processor rather than a knife. Rinse the potatoes and shake dry in a colander. Peel and halve the onions, then slice as thinly as you can manage. Don’t separate out the layers. In a suitable gratin or pie dish, make layers of potato, a generous seasoning of salt, pepper and a sprinkling of thyme, followed by onion and finishing with potato. As you make the layers, cut pieces of butter and scatter them over the top, making sure there is a decent amount for the final layer. Cover the top of the dish with foil, pierce a few times so that steam can escape, and cook in the oven for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for a further 30 minutes or until the top is golden and the potatoes are tender all the way through when pierced with a knife or skewer.
There used to be a café in nearby ‘miles of golden sand’ Hayle with an all-day breakfast menu which revolved around rösti. The pancakes were made to order by the Swiss wife of the couple who ran the Harbour Café and she cooked them to perfection: both light and elegant yet big and substantial.
Rösti is great for breakfast and was one of the first things I ever cooked – invented, I thought, by me, out of necessity when the cupboard was bare. We used to eat indecent quantities of them with nothing more than salt and tomato ketchup, but rösti go with everything from fried eggs to lambs’ kidneys in red wine. They’re good, too, with apple purée and bacon instead of mushrooms.
You can make rösti as thick or thin and as large or small as you like.
4 large potatoes, approx. 700g
vegetable oil
50g butter
salt and pepper
4 large field mushrooms
2 tbsp olive oil
12 rashers smoked streaky bacon
Parboil the potatoes for 10 minutes and allow to cool in their skins. Peel, then grate the potatoes with a coarse grater. Divide the mixture into four heaps.
For perfect rösti results, use a heavy, non-stick frying pan and heat up half a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a knob of butter. When the oil is very hot, spread one heap of potato evenly into the pan. Turn down the heat and cook for between 2 and 10 minutes depending on the thickness of the rösti. To turn the pancake over, put a plate that fits snugly inside the pan, flip it over and slip the pancake back into the pan with a bit more oil and a little more butter. It might not sound like it, but it makes the turning operation easier when a bread board is placed on top of the plate. Cook on this side as before. Slip on to a plate and keep warm while you cook the other rösti.
Wipe, then halve the mushrooms. Melt 25g butter and a little oil in a frying pan and stand the mushrooms on their cut sides. Cook for a few minutes until nicely browned, turn so the gills are uppermost, and cook the base for a few more minutes. Drape the bacon over the mushrooms and cook under a hot grill, turning the bacon to cook the other side.
Serve the rösti with the mushrooms and bacon alongside. A fried egg would be good with this.
Simple and superb.
750g small new potatoes
salt and black pepper
2 tbsp Hellmann’s mayonnaise
½ tbsp smooth Dijon mustard
3 tbsp vinaigrette (see page 280)
small bunch of chives
Scrub the potatoes and boil in salted water until tender. Meanwhile, spoon the mayonnaise into a bowl, stir in the mustard and gradually beat in the vinaigrette to make a smooth, thick dressing.
Leave very small potatoes whole, halve or thickly slice medium ones and add to the bowl. Season with black pepper. Toss the hot potatoes thoroughly in the dressing and leave until ready to serve. Snip most of the chives over the top, stir again and serve with a final flourish of chives.
I love potatoes so much that I wrote a book about them and I’d happily do it again. There is a whole chapter on potato salads and I know that it only scratched the surface. This one, called patata salata in the book, is a particular favourite that goes with everything from a slab of feta and a hard-boiled egg to fish, chicken or lamb. This latest version ups the quantity of coriander and specifies red rather than any other onion. The result is a very pretty salad, streaked with red and thick with green leaves. It is the perfect thing to knock up for a barbecue, when you might echo the Greek theme with hummus, a Greek salad and lamb kebabs or grilled red mullet.
750g similar-sized new potatoes
salt and black pepper
1 red onion
2 garlic cloves
60g bunch of coriander
2 tbsp wine vinegar
4 tbsp Greek or other fruity olive oil
Scrub the potatoes, rinse and cook in salted boiling water until tender. Drain. Leave small potatoes whole, halve medium potatoes and chunk large ones. Meanwhile, peel, halve and finely slice the onion. Peel and chop the garlic. Trim the coarse stalk ends of the bunch of coriander. Keeping the bunch shape, finely chop the stalks and let the chopping get progressively coarser as you work up the bunch into the leaves. Pour the vinegar into a salad bowl, add a generous pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper. Swirl the vinegar around the bowl until the salt dissolves. Whisk in the olive oil to make a thick and luscious dressing. Stir in the garlic and onion and then add the hot potatoes. Stir thoroughly and then add the chopped coriander. Stir again and serve hot, warm or cold, giving a final stir just before serving.
This take on Bombay aloo is adapted from a much less healthy version from In Praise of the Potato. Like all curries, it is possibly even better eaten cold the next day. The potatoes end up bathed in a pale yellow aromatic cream laced with silky strands of onion, scraps of green chilli and fresh coriander. It is interesting enough to serve on its own, or with rice, pickles and poppadums, but works well as part of a curry blowout. I often serve it with dal and discovered by accident that if you cook the seasonings – chillies, garlic, turmeric and cumin seeds – first and stir them into the lentils with the oil they are cooked in, at the beginning of cooking, rather than adding them at the end, you end up with the best ever dal.
1.4kg small salad potatoes
salt and black pepper
1 large onion
40g butter
2 green chillies
5cm fresh ginger
3 large garlic cloves
200ml Greek yoghurt
1 tsp each ground cloves, cumin and coriander
½ tsp turmeric
50ml water
2 tbsp chopped coriander
Boil the unpeeled potatoes in salted water until tender. Drain, return to the pan and cover with cold water. Leave for a couple of minutes for the potatoes to cool, then drain and skin them. While the potatoes are cooking, peel, halve and finely slice the onion. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium-low heat and add the onion. Stir until thoroughly coated with butter. Season with salt, cover the pan, reduce the heat and cook, stirring every so often, until wilted, juicy and lightly coloured. Allow at least 15 minutes for this. Meanwhile, split the chillies, scrape away the seeds, slice into skinny batons and then into tiny dice. Peel the ginger and grate or chop. Peel the garlic and chop. Pulverize these ingredients into a smooth paste – easily done with a pestle and mortar or by improvising with something heavy and a chopping board. Stir the paste into the yoghurt, along with the ground cloves, cumin, coriander and turmeric. Pour the yoghurt into the softened onions, add the water and the potatoes. Stir well and simmer for at least 10 minutes. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, stir in the fresh coriander and serve.
An almost store-cupboard soup which delivers all the whizz-bang flavours of an authentic Thai soup without any special ingredients.
1 large red onion
1 garlic clove
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 small red chillies
1 unwaxed lemon
750g potatoes
2 chicken stock cubes dissolved in 1 litre boiling water
salt and pepper
100g young spinach leaves
generous handful of coriander leaves
Peel, halve and finely chop the onion. Peel the garlic and slice in wafer-thin rounds. Heat the oil in a 2 litre capacity pan and gently fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes, giving them a good stir halfway through. Meanwhile, trim and split the chillies and scrape away the seeds. Slice into skinny batons and across into tiny scraps. Remove two strips of wafer-thin zest from the lemon. Stir the chilli and lemon zest into the onion and cook for a further 5 minutes. Peel the potatoes and cut into even-sized chunks or thick slices. Rinse and shake dry. Stir the potatoes into the onions and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the hot water in which you’ve dissolved the stock cubes. Bring the soup to the boil and turn the heat down immediately. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, ½ teaspoon of salt and a generous grinding of pepper. Partially cover the pan and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are done. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and lemon juice. Squash the spinach under the liquid, coarsely chop the coriander and add that too. The soup is ready when the spinach has wilted.
This comforting gratin is perfect rainy-day food. Grated potatoes are layered up with super-thin slices of onion and anchovies preserved in olive oil. The mixture is moistened with a little cream or milk and topped with breadcrumbs. The potatoes melt against the slippery onions and their gentle flavours are given a briny savour with soft anchovy, so soft, in fact, that the little fish disintegrate into a brown blur. A crunchy breadcrumb topping, enriched with the olive oil from the can, offsets this surprisingly delicious dish. It is good on its own but the perfect accompaniment to grilled herring or mackerel.
50g butter
2 medium onions
100ml thick cream or crème fraîche and
100ml warm water or 200ml milk
1 thick slice bread
750g potatoes
salt and black pepper
60g canned anchovy fillets in olive oil
Pre-heat the oven to 450°F/230°C/gas mark 8. Use half the butter to generously smear a 2 litre capacity gratin dish. Peel, halve and slice the onions very, very finely. Mix together the cream and water. Cut the crust off the bread, tear into pieces and blitz in the food processor to make a handful of breadcrumbs. Peel, then grate the potatoes on the large holes of a cheese grater. Strew a third of the unrinsed potatoes in the buttered dish. Season lightly with salt and generously with pepper. Arrange half the anchovies over the top, tearing them in half for uniform distribution, then cover with half the onions and then with a second third of potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and then place the rest of the anchovies over the potatoes. Cover with the remaining onions and finish with the rest of the potatoes. Press the mixture down with the flat of your hand and pour the cream and water or milk mixture over the top; it will moisten rather than cover the potatoes. Season again with salt and pepper, then strew the breadcrumbs over the top. Dribble the anchovy oil from the tin over the breadcrumbs and dot with the remaining butter. Place the dish in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 425°F/220°C/gas mark 7 and cook for 35 minutes until the top is crusty and golden and the onions and potatoes are very soft. If the top seems to be browning too much and too quickly, cover the dish loosely with a sheet of tinfoil. Serve hot from the oven or allow to cool slightly to avoid burning your mouth.
They sell decent-sliced chorizo at the delicatessen counter of the 24-hour Safeway at Penzance. It’s particularly meaty and its orange colour delivers a spicy punch. I love it with the delicious new potatoes they grow down here and hit on the idea of combining the two in a Spanish omelette. My way of making this thick omelette has always been to boil the potatoes before they are sliced, but Maria-Jose Sevilla, the expert on Spanish cooking, tells me that they should be gently fried in lots of olive oil. I followed her advice but cooked the chorizo first with the onions and their flavour permeated through the potatoes, making the omelette unbelievably good. Spanish omelette is great picnic food.
1kg potatoes, preferably large new ones
5–6 tbsp olive oil
400g can of Eazy fried onions or 2 Spanish onions
150g sliced chorizo
salt and pepper
6 large, fresh eggs
Pre-heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6. Scrape or peel the potatoes and slice as thick as a 50p coin. Leave the potatoes in a bowl of cold water. Heat 4 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan or similar-shaped ovenproof pan placed over a medium heat. Add the onions and cook for a couple of minutes. If using fresh onions rather than canned fried onions, chop them finely and fry until soft with the extra tablespoon of olive oil. Meanwhile, make a pile of the chorizo and cut the slices in quarters. Separate the pieces and add them to the pan. Cook, stirring as the slices melt into the onions, for a further couple of minutes. Drain the potatoes, shake dry and stir them into the onions and chorizo. Season with ½ a teaspoon of salt. Stir again, reduce the heat, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes. Give the potatoes another stir, return the lid and cook for a further 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl. Season lightly with salt and generously with pepper. Whisk until smooth, then tip the contents of the frying pan into the eggs and stir thoroughly. Quickly wipe out the pan – you don’t want any food stuck to the bottom – and smear all over the inside of the pan with the remaining oil. Tip the mixture into the pan and smooth the top so the surface is level and the potatoes are just covered by the egg. Place the omelette pan in the oven and reduce the temperature immediately to 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4. Cook for 10–15 minutes until the omelette is just set. Allow to cool in the pan and then run a spatula round and under the sides to loosen. Place a large plate over the pan and quickly invert to remove the omelette. Serve in wedges. Excellent warm or cold.