The vegetable garden does have planning behind it but there's a really long lead time before you can work out if a given plant has been a success: first you have to come across the seed (my local deli in Glasgow started selling Franchi seeds about 7 years ago which is where I came across Cavolo Nero and Latuga Romana which have done excellently both in the garden and on the plate); next you have to get the seeds to germinate which is a thankless task when it comes to parsley and, in our case, is frequently foiled by dramatic frosts and damn mice who push off the propagator lids to get at the baby seedlings; next they plants have to survive and thrive in the garden itself where they are subject to yet more mice (we now plant peas and beans out in tin-can-collars), frosts, droughts, too much sunshine, too little sunshine, deer and weeding by folk who should know better; the plants then have to be harvested at the right time before delicate wee courgettes have turned into bloated comedy marrows or mangetout peas have turned into rock-hard bullets; finally the produce has to both cook well and store well. Experience has taught us that onions are very prone to neck-rot in our climate and it's depressing to realise that the crop you planted six months ago, looking forward to the "award-winning flavour" is now mush. The chicory we planted this year is growing very well all over the garden but I thought it was going to be a decent base for salads and it's far too bitter for that. Since we've got lots of the stuff I'm experimenting with sauteing mixed greens made up of chicory and broccoli leaves. That's a full year from 'thinking about new plants' to either 'eating delicious freshly-picked veg' or 'admitting they weren't worth the bother'. I often think that I don't really have the patience for this gardening malarkey, not in a world where greengrocers exist.
Despite all this trendy Italian veg, the solid backbone of the garden is potatoes and this year I planted a large selection. Such is my effete metropolitan nature that they are all waxy potatoes but I wanted to experiment beyond the standard Charlotte and pink-fir types that we use. The blight has now struck, wilting the potatoes' leaves and stopping them thriving (I plant potatoes under plastic so the air-borne blight fungus doesn't drip off the leaves into the soil and affect the tubers but it does make the plants looks rubbish). The striking difference is between the potato types. Last year's Anya potatoes have been badly affected but Maxine is still doing well and Picasso and even Harlequin showed some resistance. The Kestrel potatoes were the first ones we harvested, tasted fine and showed no signs of blight. Next year I'm going to try Charlotte and Maxine as the two potato crops.
In celebration of harvest - and using the Anya potatoes (on the left of the photo) that I've started harvesting - I'm making a couple of potato dauphinoise: one to eat today and one to freeze for reheating later with some cheese on top. As well as the pink-fir taste Anya potatoes also have a fair bit of their knobbliness so I've gone for a brief parboiling of the whole potatoes so that I can peel them without sacrificing half the tuber. The proportions of the recipe come from Felicity Cloake's excellent series in the Guardian in search of the perfect version of classic dishes.
750g Anya potatoes
250ml double cream and 100ml milk
crushed garlic cloves, salt, pepper, nutmeg50g Gruyere cheese or similar
Pop the whole potatoes in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and boil for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain the potatoes, leave to cool then peel and slice as thinly as possible. Grease a dish with butter and add the potato slices in rough layers, adding salt, pepper, garlic and nutmeg between the layers as you go. Pour in the milk and cream. Cover the dish with foil or a lid and pop into the oven (160C / gas mark 3) and start testing the potatoes for doneness after 30 minutes. Once they're done, remove the lid, sprinkle with cheese and give it a final 10 minutes 'til nicely browned.
