
This dish is supposed to be made with potatoes: sliced thinly, accompanied with herbs and garlic, a bit of onion, a bit of leek and – wait for this – cooked in cream.
Literally. Boiled in copious quantity of double cream. Decadent or what?
I swapped the spuds for Jerusalem artichokes because I thought it would be ever so slightly lighter a dish (it wasn’t). Also, I had the ugly tubers sitting in the fridge, since I sometimes see them on a market stall, looking unloved (and I’m not surprised. the looks. the peeling of the buggers. the wind), and I decide to grab them in order to ‘do something interesting’ with them.
It doesn’t really happen because, let’s be honest, they aren’t that interesting. Pre-boil them and they disintegrate. Roast them raw and they’ll end up tough. This is just about the right approach – they will sort of start to cook in the cream and finish off in the oven.
Potatoes will be better in the way they absorb more of the cream – the artichokes were quite swimming in it still, after the nearly hour-long bake. So with hindsight I’d serve it as a starter perhaps, not as a side, and in small quantities.