Patatas a lo pobre - poor man’s potatoes
Before we begin - due to a fear of missing another week of publishing on SS, I have plundered something from my time in Ibiza. This will give me more breathing space whilst I continue figuring out the best way to kill a diplomat
Patatas a lo pobre is an Andalusian dish, or the Andalusian name for it, as it is served all over Spain. In Ibiza, it is the typical accompaniment when ordering baked fish. It can also be found on every menu in Heaven. Fried slices of potato that are then baked alongside really big, ugly, firm-fleshed rock fish like rascasse rotxa or John Dory gallo san Pedro.
The potatoes need to be prepared first because despite these big-boned mothers being able to handle some fairly hot baking, they can’t stay in the oven long enough to cook from scratch.
The best seafood restaurants take these fish and do almost nothing to them but bake them with a bit of wine and these potatoes.
To make them you need to heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and put in half a baker’s dozen of unpeeled whole garlic cloves. When deciding how much oil to put in, always veer on the side of recklessness and know that with olive oil, more is best.
As the cloves are gently frying, gently sautéing, peel and slice 1/2 kilo of red Ibiza potatoes. DO NOT SETTLE FOR LESS – IBIZA RED POTATOES OR NOTHING (unless of course you can't get them, in which case get the best waxy potatoes you can and don’t settle for less the next time). Put them into the oil with the garlic. Peel an onion and slice it into fingernail moons and add to the pan. Rip the pepper into pieces, discarding the seeds and stalk and add to the pan. Once everything is in, turn the heat up to medium and stir occasionally until a knife piercing the potato meets the tiniest bit of resistance.
This is one of those dishes that can be prepared as you are cooking it i.e. whilst the garlic is frying (remember, gently) you are peeling the potatoes, whilst the potatoes are frying you are peeling the onion etc.
If you are making it to go with a rockfish, get your monger to gut that mother, season it with salt and pepper, splash him with wine, add the cooked potatoes and bake it all in a hot oven (180 with fan, 210 without) until it reaches approx 60ºc where the backbone meets the head. Without thermometre timings are difficult to give. Look for when flesh comes away from the bone, but only just. Its head should look like something from a horror film - the skin flaying from its face, the eyes popping out of their sockets.
Ingredients
Olive oil
Salt
1 head of garlic
½ k potatoes
1 onion
1 super crisp long Italian green pepper
Method
Fry unpeeled garlic
Fry peeled, sliced potatoes
Season
Fry peeled chopped garlic
Fry sliced onion
Fry deseeded ripped up green peppers
Would you like the number of my shrink?
What if you don't like potatoes? Or fish? Hadn't thought of that mister!
But I do . So I'll give it a go. Gracias