We like potatoes with our meals. Both of us were brought up by families who cooked meat and 3 veg for dinner nearly every night of the year. My father wouldn’t touch pizza or lasagne or Chinese and if something didn’t look attractive, he wouldn’t touch that either. He ate like a horse and was always incredibly skinny but he ate only what he liked. If he wanted pie for breakfast – we had pie.
John tells the cutest story of the first Chinese takeaway (take out) that opened up when he was young. You had to bring your own plates and bowls and they’d fill them up. Classic! I was in a small town in Maine and people ate the same way their parents ate and their parents before them. Lots of beans, French peasant meals and dessert – always dessert.
I have heard for years about people cooking with soft drinks and I have always resisted it. I mentioned to John the other day that I might make chicken with Coca-Cola and he said something along the lines of ‘are you nuts?’ We’ve all seen the recipes for Coke or root beer and I was curious. The recipes I had seen looked really easy and I’ll share what I came up with on the blog soon. My friend Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella taught me the best phrase to describe this dish:
Chicken with Coca-Cola sauce “was pleasant enough.”
At our house we have mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes with Camembert cheese, garlic mash, roasted potatoes, baked potatoes, potatoes sliced and baked with seasoning and paprika and I wanted something different. They had to be easy to eat for Rob, full of flavour for me and crispy enough for John to be happy.
I sliced the potatoes about 1/8 of an inch – fairly thick and tossed them with just a bit of oil and dried oregano, thyme, sage and rosemary and put them on the baking sheet. Once they were laid out nice and even, I added some sea salt over the top and popped them in the oven at 225C/450F for about 30 minutes. I kept peeking through the window because being sliced like that, they could burn and be disgusting and the chicken was nearly cooked. Nothing worse than a piece of chicken on the plate with 4 green beans and a piece of carrot – and people looking at you with that “where are the potatoes??” look. Trust me, it happened. Once.
They were terrific and Rob found them easy to eat, John found them crispy enough and the herbs gave them just that boost of flavour that I wanted. We decided we’d make these again. Next time I will add garlic cloves poked around the potatoes.
- 3 large potatoes sliced ⅛"
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon rubbed sage
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 2½ tablespoons cooking oil (any sort you like)
- salt and pepper to taste
- Preheat oven 225C/450F
- Mix herbs together
- Place potato slices in a large bowl and drizzle with oil and ½ the herbs. With your hands rub the oil over all the potatoes.
- Layer the potatoes in a shallow baking pan and sprinkle with the remainder of the herbs.
- Add freshly ground salt and pepper over the top
- Bake for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are browned and crisp.