Don't Sweat the Aubergine

mark 6/200°C oven, that is. Of course, you are more than likely to be preparing them to accompany some other dish that is cooking there: a roasting meat or a simmering stew. It is likely, too, that you will be cooking these dishes at a lower temperature than gas mark 6/200°C.
    If you are cooking a stew, your oven will be (I hope, for the stew’s sake) at too low a temperature for the potatoes. Consider transferring the casserole dish to the smallest ring on the hob, and putting a heat disperser underneath it. Your roast may be cooking at gas mark 4/180°C; put it on to a low shelf, with the potatoes on a high one. You’ll want to take the meat out of the oven at least 20 minutes before carving; at that point, you can turn up the temperature to get the potatoes good and crisp. If you’re slow-roasting some lamb or belly pork, say, at a temperature of gas mark 1/140°C or less, try taking it out of the oven before you put the potatoes in; turn the temperature right up (to gas mark 8/230°C), in order to cook them in 30 to 40 minutes, but keep an eye on them. The meat will still be warm when the potatoes are done; I prefer it at this temperature.
FRIED POTATOES
    You can follow the procedure for roast potatoes: peel, cut up, parboil, dry, then fry. You must fry them in a single layer, as the recipe books say. How large are these writers’ frying pans? I’ve got a pretty large one, and I find it hard to cram it with enough potatoes to satisfy a family of four. Cooking them requires attention: you need to turn them and move them around, to make sure they cook evenly. Grumble, grumble. Still, they taste good.
CHIPS
    I don’t make chips often at home. I used to think that they were best left to restaurants, until I learned that even quite prestigious restaurants rely on oven chips. But I still think that maintaining a chip pan, filled with several bottles of rapidly degrading oil, is a bore for the home cook.
    Nevertheless, you can get good chips with any old pan, and without a thermometer. It’s quite satisfying.
    The two-phase method of cooking chips was commonly accepted as the best, until Heston Blumenthal came up with his three-phase version. Like his mashed potato recipe, it’s for perfectionists rather than for home cooks merely trying to get meals on to their tables.
    The two phases are an initial one of about 10 to 15 minutes, at 140°C; and then one at 190°C, until the chips are brown. During phase one, you’re boiling the chips in the oil; phase two is the browning bit. If you tried to combine these phases, the potatoes would brown before the interiors were cooked; also, the first phase – for reasons I don’t fully understand, but something to do with what happens to the surface starch – helps to produce a crunchier chip.
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HOW TO MAKE THEM
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    If you have a proper chip pan or a thermometer, this process will be easier. Half fill a large saucepan with oil (I use a mixture of corn and sunflower, or corn and groundnut). DO NOT GO ABOVE HALFWAY UP THE PAN WITH THE OIL. Even potatoes that you think you’ve dried thoroughly will cause the hot oil to erupt when they hit it; an overflowing pan may give you all sorts of trouble.
    Peel and cut the potatoes: choose a thickness, cut them horizontally, then cut these rounds horizontally or vertically, depending on the size of chip you want. Put them into cold water, to remove some of the surface starch; dry them.
    Heat the oil, above a low to medium flame. Drop in a small piece of bread: it should sizzle gently. Add the potatoes, and don’t crowd the pan; you may need to cook them in several batches. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until nearly tender.
    You’re told to remove the potatoes at this stage. I never bother. Simply turn up the heat, and cook the chips until golden. Remove them to a colander lined with paper towels. If you’re cooking them in batches, keep them warm in a low oven. Add salt just before serving.
GRATIN DAUPHINOIS
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 4
    4 medium-sized potatoes 1
    1 pot (284ml) cream
    Milk 2
    1/2 garlic clove, chopped 3
    Pinch of nutmeg
    Salt
    1 dstsp clarified butter or olive oil or vegetable oil 4
    Heat the oven to gas mark 3/160°C. 5 Slice the potatoes no thicker than a pound coin, and as thinly as you like, into a bowl of cold water. Drain them. Elizabeth David says that you should dry them at this point, but that seems unnecessarily fussy. Smear the clarified butter or oil over the insides of a gratin dish. (A Pyrex