I was looking for ideas to cook Hawkes Farm’s kipfler potatoes and started thinking about Patatas a lo Pobre – poor man’s potatoes – a Spanish peasant dish, using potatoes, onions and capsicum. It’s rustic, rich, delicious and filling. Serve alongside meat or fish or simply with a green salad.

This recipe is a mish-mash from a couple of cookbooks in my library, The Catalan Kitchen and Movida. In The Catalan Kitchen, Emma Warren cooks the potatoes in a combination of olive oil and stock. The Movida version uses only olive oil and has an additional step to crisp the potatoes. So I am letting you choose whether to serve this as a one-pot dish, or do the extra baking step for a golden crisp finish. Either way you’ll love the results.

serves 4 – 6

½ cup (125ml) extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, peeled, cut into 8 wedges

½ teaspoon salt

6 garlic cloves, with skin, gently bruised

1 green capsicum, sliced into 2cm wide strips

1 red capsicum, sliced into 2cm wide strips, or 1 punnet baby capsicums, halved, lengthways

1 kg kipfler potatoes, cut into 3mm-5mm thick rounds

2 bay leaves

250ml vegetable or chicken stock

sea salt

black pepper

¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oil in a large heavy based frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, capsicum, potatoes, bay leaves and salt and stir to coat in the oil. Pour in the stock and cover with a lid. Bring to the boil, then immediately reduce the heat to a low simmer. Remove the lid. Cook for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are very tender, gently stirring occasionally, to prevent sticking to base of pan. 

Season to taste with extra salt, if needed, and a grinding of pepper. Serve with parsley scattered over the top, if using.

If you’d prefer a crispy finish to the dish, preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan-forced) while the vegetables are cooking in the pan. Using a slotted spoon transfer the vegetables to a foil or baking paper lined baking tray. Spread out evenly. Bake for about 15 minutes until the top is golden and the potatoes are crispy around edges.

Recipe inspiration by The Catalan Kitchen by Emma Warren and Movida by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish

 Fiona Hammond © March 2020