Spud Fail

I admit it, I like to pride myself in my 'invent-a-recipe' style of cooking... this is where I generally know how to cook something, and try my hand sans-recipe. Most of the time this works for a nice dinner... and sometimes the results are awesome (I'll have to post my sausage & pesto breadcrumb stuffed chicken breasts soon) but there is one area where I have nothing but FAIL, and have decided I need to edumacate myself - Potatoes!

As the future wife to an Irish fella, and an Irish fella whose dad is a chef and whose mom is a pastry chef (I know, big boots to fill!) I really really need to up the stakes in the land of spud. Not only that, but as this blog suggests, I make every attempt to eat food which is local and in season etc. etc. so I HAVE to get better at this staple of Irish-dom.

I'm fine at the basics: mash, baked, I even do a mean roastie... but as soon as I try to experiment, I have had nothing but embarrassment.

Below, my attempt at garlic/scallop potatoes. Yeah, they looked good, but everything bar the top layer was uncooked despite 70 minutes in the oven, and don't even get me started on the curdled milk.


Then there was my attempt at a potato cake/hash browns. Again, they looked good, but were completely flavorless and slightly undercooked as well... I blame not enough eggy mixture.


Anyways, I'm going to have a good study of some proper potato recipes. My food bible, The Joy of Cooking, has a whole section of them... and then of course, where better place to get more info but from an Irish food blog? So it's on to The Daily Spud for me.

Wish me luck! I'd hate to disappoint my adopted country with a new kind of potato famine! Eek!