Potato skins – are they the best bit of the potato?
The question in the title is a little facetious but potato skins cooked on the Big Green Egg are something of a revelation! Just before the Covid Pandemic lockdown we were lucky enough to get a 12.5Kg box of Linda (1951) potatoes from Carroll’s Heritage potatoes – they have been great and have kept the 2 of us going really well during the lockdown period. However April/May is the time when all self respecting potatoes that have not been chemically treated start to ‘sprout’ or as Lucy from Carroll’s Potatoes said – “start to wake up!!” We reached the point where the last 20-30 potatoes (these were relatively small, select potatoes) had developed lots of sprouts! Under normal circumstances we may have just composted them at this point – but we have been trying to reduce our demand on local shops so have looked for things to do with them – and success!!
We removed the potato shoots, scrubbed the potatoes and popped them into the large EGG whilst we were heating it up for a different cook. As these potatoes were only the size of an extra large hen’s egg they cook in around 30-40 mins. They were cooked over an indirect setup at around 180C (the other half of the EGG set up for direct cooking.)
Once cooked they were removed and allowed to cool. The next day the potatoes were cut in half lengthways and 90% of the flesh scooped out with a teaspoon leaving the remaining 10% supporting the skin. 20 potatoes therefore give you 40 skins which is a lot to play with! 
To cook and serve the halves were simply placed in the base of one of our ‘handleless” Tefal frying pans, and sprayed on each side with a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt placesd open side down in the pan and sautéed over direct heat at 170C until the edge of the skins were nicely coloured. They were then flipped over and the cooking continued until they were crispy.
We have simply been serving them with a homemade hummus dip, though they would also work with a simple cooked filling (more of that later!!). The potato that was scooped out was destined for other dishes which we will try and catch up with as we get chance.
For the moment though it is the skins that are taking the pride of place – they are lovely and ‘as cheap as chips’
…………….. go on – give them a go!!
Potato Skins - the best bits of the potato!?
Cooked potato cooked out of small baked potatoes to leave a glorious skin to sauté and roast!!
Ingredients
- 30 potatoes (size of a duck's egg)
- Spray oil e.g. olive or rapeseed oil
- Salt
Directions
- Step 1 Bake the potatoes indirectly at around 170-180C on the EGG until just cooked and allow to cool
- Step 2 Cut the potatoes in half lengthways and scoop out most of the cooked flesh (and set aside to use for another dish) leaving just a little potato lining the skins. Save the skins in the fridge till needed
- Step 3 Spray the skins (4 or 5 per person) with oil and sprinkle with salt. Place onto a solid cooking surface (e.g. pan) open side down and cook direct at 170C until the rim of the skin is golden coloured. Turn over and cook for another 5 mins or so until crisp.
- Step 4 Serve with a home made hummus dip
The results were vary moreish! the 6 large chicken thighs comfortably fed 2 of us with enough left over for a generous cold lunch the following day. Packed into a small Pitta bread with the salad and coleslaw – just fabulous!
Now I would still stand by that, it is a great dish!! However, we had the opportunity to try the dish with a different potato, this time Red King Edward 1916 – again from 
The dish itself is simple to make but so rewarding to serve! We are just cooking for 2 at the moment and so this dish is based on that. Four or 5 medium sized potatoes, one medium sized onion and a 250g pack of smoked mackerel are the main solid ingredients. The potatoes were peeled and parboiled for around 6-8 minutes and then left to cool so they could be handled. The onion was finely sliced into rings and placed as the first layer in a greased medium sized roasting dish. The potatoes were sliced length ways around half a centimetre thick. These made up the second layer. These layers were each lightly salted. The third layer was the smoked mackerel, skin removed and torn into decent size chunks. This was then repeated until the roasting dish was full and finished off with a layer of potatoes.
The layers were gently pressed down into place to remove any large air spaces between layers. The final step was to add the creamy, mustard milk in which the dish would cook. The mix was made up of around 250ml of milk, 100ml of cream and 2 tablespoons of grain mustard. This was poured into the roasting tin and allowed to flow between the layers. Finally some extra mustard seeds were sprinkled over the top.
This is all there was to it, all that was left to do was to add it to the Big Green Egg set up for indirect cooking at 170-180C (this can also be cooked in a domestic oven at the same temperature!).
Leave this for around an hour until the top browns and the potatoes are beautifully softened.
The chicken drumsticks were therefore put into the second pan with the chicken breast, skin side down, and the cooking continued. We did this as a little challenge as clearly we could have done this more easily on the large BGE. Using the large BGE we would have had plenty of room for both pans at once. Doing this in the MiniMax means it is necessary to ‘swap over’ the 2 pans. This is why we were cooking directly, unlike on the previous occasion when we cooked the 
Once at temperature the chicken was wrapped in foil and covered with a clean tea towel to rest. The potatoes had some fresh rosemary and sea salt sprinkled over the top and were finished off on the EGG.
We heated a flat bottom non stick pan on a medium heat and greased 3 muffin rings and added them to the pan to heat up. The bubbling batter was then divided between the 3 rings and cooked for 5-6 mins. At this point the tops begin to set and the crumpets can be carefully removed from the rings and were flipped over to cook the tops for a further 3 mins or so until golden brown. Then simply serve as you would commercial crumpets! We served ours very simply with butter and a little smoked salmon for a light lunch. Perfect!
The prawns were defrosted and put on a bamboo skewer for ease of handling. They were cooked over a direct flame until they just became pink and were slightly singed on their edges then put to oneside to cool.
From this point making the pâté really just becomes a matter of assembly. All this could be done in a food processor but we wanted a coarse chunky pâté and so all the components were hand chopped with a chef’s knife. 
The smoked trout was first sliced then added to the shelled prawns and they were both roughly chopped. The white crab meat was then added together with the zest of half a lemon. 
(The dish would be fine without the crab – just slightly different.) This was all put in a glass bowl together with the cream cheese, the juice of a lemon and a little black pepper and cayenne pepper. There was no need to add salt. This was mixed thoroughly and then spooned into a pâté dish and decorated with some crab claw meat – and the only green that we had to hand – a small basil rosette.
With the help of the team from ‘Charlotte’s Butchery’, namely on this occasion Charlotte’s brother Jamie we spent some time deciding which cut of lamb to use as we were cooking on the Big Green Egg and we also had a Shawarma Spike which we had had made for us some time ago specifically for use on the EGG.
Jamie suggested using a whole rolled shoulder of lamb but cut into sections so each section could be marinated all over with the spice mix. We took that one stage further by also slashing into the sides of the meat cylinder so we could push the spice mix in there too.
The following day the Big green egg was set up to cook indirectly at between 150-160C (the original recipe suggests 170C and that would be fine too and give a shorter cooking time – but we weren’t in any hurry!! If you are using a Shawarma spike we have found it helpful to add half an onion to the spike first to lift the meat off the base. The base can become hotter than you perhaps want even when cooking indirectly. (If you are cooking with out a spike then I would suggest stacking 2 or 3 pieces on top of each other in a roasting tin and pushing a skewer through the pieces from the top to hold it together.) The whole thing was topped off with the remains of the squeezed lemon on the top.
When we were ready to eat the meat was carved – this was made so much easier with the Shawarma being in 3 distinct sections. Each being taken out of the cool box and carved when needed.
It was served on a cutting board with a green salad. Eaten with a flat bread and some freshly made humus and a squeeze of fresh lemon was perfect!!
I have to say I normally just use the wings to make stock (sorry all you BBQ wing lovers!). But in the spirit of making our food go further we decided to bone out the first section of the wing and then stuff the space with some chopped mushrooms and a little chorizo that we had in the fridge. These bulging pockets were closed off with a couple of cocktail sticks. 
Probably around 70% of the cooking should be done with the skin in contact with the pan. Partly through the cooking of the breast, the excess mushrooms and chorizo that we weren’t able to pack into the wings was dropped into the pan to fry off in the rendered chicken fat. These would be sprinkled over the salad that we were intending to serve with the chicken.
The shreds of pork we’re dropped into a frying pan with a crushed clove of garlic and lightly fried. The garlic was used to flavour the fats coming out of the pork. We also had a few mushrooms, that in all fairness had seen better days! These were sliced and tossed into the pan to take on some colour. When you have so few it is worth individually turning them over to get some colour on both sides. Take the garlic out of the pan and discard or chop and add back to the mix. Let the mix cool. When cooled we mixed a small spoonful of mayonnaise into the rice just to make it a little richer and slightly sticky. The cooled mushroom and pork mix was then stirred through the rice and the whole dish seasoned with salt and pepper to taste.
Crumbling doesn’t stop the terrine tasting wonderful, but if you want your terrine to look great on the plate then crumbling is a real ‘no no’! Even when a terrine is not likely to crumble it is very easy to distort or tear the pancetta that surrounds the terrine. This tends to happen on the side towards the direction that the knife slides when cutting the terrine.
Fortunately the solution is really simple! Wrap the whole terrine tightly with clingfilm. Cut the slices of terrine as normal, but through the clingfilm.
Place the slice of terrine where you want it for your plating. Then simply snip through the clingfilm and remove it before serving
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