If you love potatoes – and which one of us, westerners, doesn’t? – early spring is the time to enjoy them with impunity.
New potatoes! The first Jersey Royals, early Majorcan, Cypriot potatoes and Cornish new – my firm favourites are the Jerseys. When they turn up on the market stalls, I can’t resist even though they cost a small fortune in the first few weeks. But gently boiled till pierceable with a point of a sharp knife, dotted with knobs of butter melting over the delicate skins and sprinkled with fronds of fresh dill and flakes of salt - that’s my idea of a heavenly feast.
But why can we eat new potatoes with impunity, impact on pocket notwithstanding? That’s because they are much lower in starch than mature potatoes, but provide plenty of fibre as they are commonly eaten with the skins, where the fibre mostly resides. On top of that they are a good source of vitamin C and B, and contain only around 70 calories per 100g (the butter that you’ll lavish on them not included, sadly).
So how to prepare the Jersey Royals or Cornish new? I personally believe they are better bought unwashed but apparently washing does not diminish their nutritional qualities. Still, scrubbing the soil off the skins making sure that delicate veil stays on is for me an almost religious experience: performing the rites in order to achieve gustatory bliss. And I’m not even entirely joking here.
Then proceed to cook them, simply boiling or steaming with no recipe needed. When you want to take the experience further, try crushing them lightly, sauteing with spinach or making a new potato, asparagus and pancetta salad (once that other spring delicacy, asparagus, appears as well).
Later on in the season make sure you try garlic and lemon new potatoes, poached in oil. It’s an unexpected flavour bomb!
Spring potato salad is another item that must appear on the menu at this time of year, or more adventurously, a spicy potato salad with bacon and cucumber.
Potatoes go with smoked mackerel in a warm salad, and they are wonderful with salmon in a salmon and potato bake.
Of course the lovers of chips and roast potatoes might remain indifferent: new spuddies are not chippable. But they do make delightful smashed roasties, once their price calms down a bit and we can stop treating them like a choicest delicacy. Enjoy your potatoes!