Nigella Eats Everything

We’re in the depths of potato season. We can see the burrata salads and the like jumping up and down, yoo-hooing at us from under a flashing sign announcing SUMMER, but until we finally get there, we still have the sturdy, reliable potato and a pan of simmering duck fat and butter, velvety garlic cloves, and smug satisfied stomachs. Say hello to fondant potatoes. They’re new around these parts. But, thanks to their general heft, I’m sure they will fit right in.

I write this in a somewhat confused state. Outside is currently warmer than inside because our apartment wouldn’t know what insulation is even if it went on a date with a roll of fiberglass, so the windows are thrown open, I’m sipping a Gaylord-cocktail-creation of raspberry, strawberry, basil and gin, the colour of which belongs in a child’s make up box, and Gaylord is dancing like a pagan celebrating the sun’s arrival on the warm patio. Meanwhile, I am huddled under a blanket, wearing my beloved slippers, and thinking about potatoes and duck fat. Welcome to spring.

Spring is the season I always struggle with. While the other three have their own problems – chilblains, sunburn, colds, you know the drill – it’s spring I find myself shaking my fist at year in, year out. First, there’s the issue of what to wear and I eternally never have enough clothes. My main accessory, rather than stylish sunglasses or a scarf to immerse my face in, is a clammy raincoat.

Second, there’s the produce available to cook. Apples and pears; it’s been fun, but I think we need a break. It’s not you – it’s me. And yet, the alternative? The eternal banana? A fruit that will never have a seasonal flourish in Europe? (and ‘eternal’ – take that with a pinch of salt). And so distracted are we by the promise of summer, the cornucopia of aubergines, courgettes, muscular beefy tomatoes, crisp fennel, and corn, glowing like nuggets of gold, and oh my god, the artichokes that are already the size of wedding bouquets, that those forgotten spring vegetables are those kids at prom without a date.

I know all this will come across as heresy, dear reader – after all, what on earth am I talking about, spring is a time of joy! Just look at those lambs frolicking in the fields. The tulips, the daffodils! We’ve survived winter, emerged craggy and frostbitten from our hibernation, and into the welcoming arms of warm-ish sunshine.

I know, I know. I hate myself for thinking this way. And yet, every year, I run around the calendar’s cooking race-track, a rolling pin and pot in hand, and every time, it’s that darned spring that acts like the crazy streaker getting in my way. We gush and groan over wild garlic, asparagus and rhubarb, but I personally think their adulation is completely overrated – yes! I can’t believe I said it! – and largely because they’re here one day, gone the next. Asparagus won’t text you back. And wild garlic, which I have seen in the wild a grand total of once, is simply the mysterious bad boy that food bloggers fawn over.

So here I am with a potato recipe. It’s to remind me, dear reader, there is more to this season than the headline acts. All those root vegetables from winter are alive and kicking throughout spring, they just need a little love and affection before summer when those beautiful artichokes and burrata have their wicked way with me. And when I say love and affection, I mean duck fat.

Duck fat fondant potatoes

I made chocolate fondants a few months ago – in fact, I made six and ate them all… it was a difficult time – so if that’s the only fondant you are familiar with, let me introduce you to their cousin, the fondant potato – suffice to say, they share a family name and a lustrous melting texture, but luckily that’s about it. I wouldn’t recommend serving these for dessert. After all, I don’t mind animal fats in my puddings (suet and I are old friends) but even I will draw the line at duck fat.

I’d heard about the mysterious fondant potato on the grapevine – no doubt via all the foodies I follow on Instagram (which I’ve now temporarily abandoned because it makes me far too hungry) – and the photos of golden, crusty fondant potatoes dripping with duck fat was enough to have me wantonly biting my lip. Yet, I never made them. The steadiest and strongest vegetable of the year-long crop is eternally maligned because there’s always something more tempting out there. Finally aware of this gross injustice, I bought a sack of waxy potatoes. And a jar of duck fat.

If you google fondant potato recipes, you will notice duck fat is rarely included in the ingredients. This is an Ally addition, one decided upon due to my surroundings of Toulouse. La ville rose, for all its beauty and colour and friendliness, is a city of carnivores. You can’t avoid meat here. And if you’re vegetarian, you’re frequently offered a restaurant’s catch of the day.

In this southern corner of France, the most celebrated meat is duck. There is the rosy pink magret de canard served in all restaurants across the region, and duck foie gras as opposed to goose, and I can’t tell you how difficult it was to find pork pates and rillettes to take home to my dad one Christmas. In this land, duck is king. And of course, I haven’t mentioned duck confit in which duck legs are submerged in duck fat and gently cooked until melt-in-the-mouth tender.

So, I took that duck confit and replaced it with a potato.

By wrapping it in a luxurious coat of fat, the humble potato ceases to exist. Gone is its floury, mealy centre, replaced by smooth velvet, its outside edges so crunchy and caramelised that it appears like golden armour.

First though – the shaping. Form little barrels of potato using those fancy knife skills you have up your sleeve, or just a sharp peeler or a cookie cutter – ideally a couple of inches in diameter (approximately 6 cm). In an ideal world, you want to have a number of pert potato cylinders, identical like a brigade of soldiers, however, that’s ambitious. Similar sizes and heights is the aim of the game so then they all cook at the same speed. They should have flat bottoms and be wider than they are tall, although some discrepancy is allowed. We’re not perfect. And neither are our potatoes.

Season the potatoes and toss them around in a splash of oil, then start melting your duck fat. Get it nice and hot and sizzling, add your potatoes so they are standing to attention, then cook them without moving for around 8 minutes. Flip them all over, their little crisped golden bottoms now pointing to the ceiling and cook on the other side for the same amount of time.

Now for more fat – butter, the flavour of joy – smashed garlic and thyme and baste. Baste until those potato barrels are soaked through, glimmering and glinting like stocky diamonds. Pour in thick chicken stock and into the hot oven it goes. The fondant potatoes will simmer in this savoury, salty jacuzzi until the flesh is creamy and can be scooped up with a spoon.

Until now, potato has always been in the background, the chorus member lumbering along to the cancan. And yet, what a makeover they’ve had – no main dish will get a look in with fondant potatoes on the side. Finally, not only do potatoes have their spotlight but, for me at least, it’s the permission for my spring cooking to go back to basics. As long as there’s some duck fat on hand.