Perfect Potatoes

When I was a child, Perfect Potatoes were a treat.

When my father was a child, and later a young adult, they were a way to make the lean nights seem filling.

I'm not sure whether it was invented by my Grandmother or my Great-Aunt (who, the more I learn about her, makes a very convincing argument for the concept of either reincarnation or Nature beating Nurture on some things, because there are a lot of scary similarities...) who came up with the recipe. Perhaps it was even my Great-Grandmother, who was a camp cook for the construction workers building the motorway that connects Sydney to Newcastle.

All of them died well before I was born, so there's no real way to find out.

Both of my paternal Grandparents were Truckers, when that was very much a low-education blue-collar job. They lived in a Federation-Era house on the border of Newtown and Annandale, back when that was the outer-western suburbs, Parramatta was a completely different city to Sydney proper, and Penrith was a day trip. Certainly well before Gentrification of those suburbs became a thing.

If Grandpa Gordon and Nana Jean were working late, Dad and his siblings would go to their Aunt's apartment after school for a hot meal until their parents came home. She lived alone, never married, and had no children but liked them well enough as long as she could give them back afterward. She had an administrative job, and was very probably somewhere on the Spectrum.

(So, me in a different lifetime, basically...)

Dad's side of the family worked out early that Education and hard work were the way out to a better life, and living to see their kids grow up.

My grandparents weren't wealthy. They weren't the kind of poor that comes with food insecurity and wondering which of the overdue bills to pay this week, but they weren't so well off that groceries didn't have to stretch at the end of a fortnight.

So, when a vegetable medley and the last of the meat needed some extra carbs to keep everyone going, or when a meal wanted to look like more than it was, Perfect Potatoes came out.

They were easy, and cheap, but they looked fancy.

Potatoes were boiled, then sliced in half and the inside hollowed out. That was mashed with a splash of milk and maybe an egg if one was left,

The mash was scooped back into the potato shells and covered with the last of a block of cheese, grated fine.

Set on a tray and into the oven while the table was being set and the rest of the meal just needed a few more minutes, they came out golden, crispy and delicious, and the perfect way to pretend that this side dish wasn't made for less than sixpence in the 1960s.

It was also one of the first things my Dad taught me to make, when I expressed an interest in learning to cook, after weekend pancakes and my godmother having a mini-heart attack every time she let us make prawn crackers.

We didn't have them often, because they involved more time and effort after a workday, compared to other vegetable dishes. Perhaps, too, they were a way to stretch the menu, when medication for my twin and I was still experimental and expensive, and they didn't know what Sally's future education looked like, other than Probably Very Costly.

Perhaps Dad just didn't like to make them, but did so because his daughters loved them, and there weren't that many foods we agreed on that he wouldn't jump on the lack of arguing.

You won't find these Perfect Potatoes on a menu at any restaurant, diner or cafe.

They're cheaper than chips, and not traceable to any ethnic cuisine, and they don't show off a chef's skill the way a good potato bake, or potato salad does.

It doesn't make a good base to show off slow-cooked meat of some kind like mashed potatoes do, or round out a plate the way chips or a baked potato manages. There are no fancy ingredients or spices for patrons to guess at and gush over.

Just potatoes, milk, the last bit of butter and cheese, and a recipe that lasted long after the people who thought it up had passed away.

There's a sweet potato version, too, with butter, brown sugar and maybe a sprinkle of spices, but that's a Steakhouse Staple Side, as I found out shortly after patting myself on the back for inventing it, so not really relevant to the challenge...

For more quick, simple and filling recipes, check out my cookbook above.