Pommes Anna

Ox Club in Leeds makes the best Pommes Anna, hands down. After stealing the recipe from one of the chefs there, I saw Big Has had done a set of stories on how to make potato cakes, which helped get this recipe just right. This is all about the preparation, so put some tunes on and get to work.

Ingredients

• 250g salted butter
• 2 sprigs rosemary (or thyme)
• 6 cloves garlic
• 6 King Edward potatoes

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pan on a low heat with the garlic and rosemary
2. Once melted, mash all the flavours together and sieve the butter out
3. Peel the potatoes
4. Set a mandolin to the thinest setting (or the thinest you can to allow it to evenly slice the potato)
5. Slice the potatoes into a tub of water to stop them browning
6. Drain the potatoes and dry thoroughly on kitchen roll
7. Get two tins that fit inside each other, the top one will be for pressing the contents of the bottom one
8. Line the tin with baking paper
9. Get a slice of potato, dip into the butter and let any excess run off, and layer in the tin
10. Rinse and repeat this until you've used up all the potatoes
11. Place some baking paper on top of the layered potatoes and press the other tin on top
12. Bake for 1 hour at 160°C
13. Leave to cool and chill in the fridge until completely cold (overnight or at least for a few hours)
14. Remove the cake from the tin and remove the baking paper
15. Cut into even cubes, trimming the outside edges of the cake off
16. Fry the cubes each side at a time until golden brown (no oil or butter required as there's plenty in the layers)
17. Once every cube is fried off you can transfer them to a larger tray to keep at temperature in a 140°C oven (you can also pat them off with kitchen roll if they look a bit greasy)
18. Season with salt before serving and enjoy as your hours of work disappear in less than a minute

Notes

You will never make enough of these and you will always want more.

Inspiration

Cheers to Ox Club, Frankie from Jimmys and Big Has.