A Hasselback potato is a glorious thing – similar to a jacket potato, but so much better! The slits allow the potato to absorb more flavours whilst it is cooking and can be stuffed with any number of different ingrdients. The recipe below brings together the glorious combination of sweet soft potato, salty ham and cheese, and the delightful zing of wholegrain mustard. Whilst this can be served as a side dish it makes a wonderful light meal in it’s own right.
Croque Monsier Hasselback Potatoes with Prosciutto di San Daniele & Grana Padano
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Ingredients
- 4 baking potatoes (approx. 700g)
- 4 tsp Filippo Berio Olive Oil
- Salt
- 70g Grana Padano Cheese
- 6 slices Prosciutto di San Daniele
- 4 tsp wholegrain mustard
Method
- Pre-heat your oven to 2200C / 2000C fan oven.
- Using a sharp knife, cut slits in your potatoes, these should be about half a centimetre apart and should go about two-thirds of the way through the potato.
- Brush the tops of the potatoes with olive oil (about 1 tsp on each) and then sprinkle over a little salt.
- Bake the potatoes for 1 hour (the cooking time may vary depending on the size of your potatoes). Every 20 minutes, brush the potatoes with the oil they’re sitting in. If you notice the edges getting dark brown and crispy, loosely cover the potatoes in foil to stop them from burning.
- While the potatoes are cooking thinly slice the Grana Padano Cheese.
- Once the potatoes have been baking for an hour, use a knife to check if they’re soft in the centre, if not return them to the oven for a few more minutes. If they are, remove them from the oven and carefully push the sliced cheese into the slits. It doesn’t need to go into every slit, about every 3 is fine.
- Return the potatoes to the oven for 5 minutes to melt the cheese.
- Remove the potatoes from the oven. Put a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard onto each potato and use the back of a spoon to spread it across the top. Roughly tear the Prosciutto di San Daniele and push it into some of the empty slits (as with the cheese, one in about every 3 slits is fine).
- Serve immediately
Enjoy!
In season this month:
Fruits & Nuts
Apples, Apricot, Aubergine, Blackberries, Blackcurrants, Blueberries, Loganberries, Peaches, Plums, Raspberries, Redcurrants, Strawberries, Whitecurrants, Cobnuts, Hazelnuts,
Vegetables & Herbs
Artichokes, Aubergines, Beetroot, Broccoli, Cabbages, Carrots, Cauliflower, Chard, Courgettes, Cucumber, Fennel, French Beans, Garlic, Kohlrabi, Lamb’s Lettuce, Onions, Pak Choi, Peas (inc. Sugar Snaps) Potatoes, Radishes, Rocket, Runner Beans, Salsify, Scorzonera, Samphire, Sorrel, Spinach, Sweetcorn, Tomatoes, Watercress
Meat & Game
Lamb, Rabbit, Venison, Wood Pigeon
Fish & Shellfish
Black Bream, Crab (brown, hen & Spider), Signal Crayfish, Grey Mullet, Lobster, Mackerel, Pollack, Prawns, Scallops, Sea Bass, Squid, Trout (river – brown and rainbow)
Going out of season
Blackberries, Blueberries, Cherry, Mangetout, Peach, Redcurrant, Strawberries (many of these towards the end of the month)
Suzanne is a professional chef, wife and mother who has lived in South East London all her life.
You can email Suzanne with any comments or questions at info@suzannejames.co.uk
This article first appeared in the August 2017 issue eof