MaC
Moderator
Two mugs full of fresh picked young nettle shoots.
Good handful of sprigs of bittercress.
Eight ransom leaves.
One grated small onion.
Four grated chestnut mushrooms.
Good grind of black pepper.
Good pinch of salt.
Two tablespoonsful of olive oil.
Wash the nettles, bittercrss and ransoms. Pat mostly dry with a kitchen towel.
Chop up small, heat oil up a little in a wide pan and stir fry the grated onion for a couple of minutes.
Add in the grated mushroom and stir well.
Add in the nettles, ransoms and bittercress and season.
Stir really well. The nettles will keep colour.
Remove from heat and put a lid on the pot.
You can add chilli powder, or soy sauce to your own taste.
Set aside to cool down.
Either use left over mashed potatoes, or make up Smash (Sainsbury's own version is nicer I find, but whatever you have will work)
Five rounded tablespoonsful of dried potato is my usual amount for this dish.
I make up the smash with added salt, ground white pepper and some butter. I thin it down a little with cold milk.
This helps make it workable, it needs to be a rather soft mashed potato so that it will take in the flour.
Two tablespoonsful of flour....we're mostly gluten free so that's what I use, but plain or S.R. ordinary wheat flour works fine....the important bit is that you add cornflour or better yet cornmeal in the outer layer.
I generally do this by using the cornmeal as the flour I use to dust my hands and the potato dough I'm working with.
I like fine yellow cornmeal for this. It makes a good crunch
You can just use plain cornflour for both stirring through the potato and for the outer coating.
Stir the ordinary flour through the potatoes.
Then dust your hands and a plate with cornmeal and take a lump of the potato dough, about the size of a small apple, and pat it out between your hands into a wide oval. It'll be about a cm thick. Put a heaped teaspoonful of the cooked veggies in the middle and fold the dough over and around. It makes a kind of short fat cuttlefish bone shaped patty. Dust generously with cornmeal, and lay out on the plate.
Repeat until all used up. I usually manage five of them from one batch, which is handy because I get five into the big frying pan
Heat a cm of oil in the frying pan.....my cooker's electric, I set it to 4, so that's about 2/3rd of the heat.
Slip the papas rellenos into the pan and fry. They take a few minutes each side, turn and do it again, and they'll end up a crispy rich golden brown crispy shell around mashed potato with a spring filling
Tasty, easy and sort of happy food.
They're also a pantry food, since you can use stuff like cornbeef, or even a heaped teaspoonful of meat paste as the filling.....or wee fishy thing like sardines or pilchards if you like.
Cheese sort of works, but pick your cheese carefully, runny stringy stuff is a mess. Bit of stilton or Danish blue's quite nice though
M
Edit, ought to have said, I use Bistort, Dandelion, and Docken leaves for this sort of thing too. Those all have a sort of bitter bite though, so balance your seasoning appropriately. I like that bite to my Spring greens, but not everyone does.
Good handful of sprigs of bittercress.
Eight ransom leaves.
One grated small onion.
Four grated chestnut mushrooms.
Good grind of black pepper.
Good pinch of salt.
Two tablespoonsful of olive oil.
Wash the nettles, bittercrss and ransoms. Pat mostly dry with a kitchen towel.
Chop up small, heat oil up a little in a wide pan and stir fry the grated onion for a couple of minutes.
Add in the grated mushroom and stir well.
Add in the nettles, ransoms and bittercress and season.
Stir really well. The nettles will keep colour.
Remove from heat and put a lid on the pot.
You can add chilli powder, or soy sauce to your own taste.
Set aside to cool down.
Either use left over mashed potatoes, or make up Smash (Sainsbury's own version is nicer I find, but whatever you have will work)
Five rounded tablespoonsful of dried potato is my usual amount for this dish.
I make up the smash with added salt, ground white pepper and some butter. I thin it down a little with cold milk.
This helps make it workable, it needs to be a rather soft mashed potato so that it will take in the flour.
Two tablespoonsful of flour....we're mostly gluten free so that's what I use, but plain or S.R. ordinary wheat flour works fine....the important bit is that you add cornflour or better yet cornmeal in the outer layer.
I generally do this by using the cornmeal as the flour I use to dust my hands and the potato dough I'm working with.
I like fine yellow cornmeal for this. It makes a good crunch
You can just use plain cornflour for both stirring through the potato and for the outer coating.
Stir the ordinary flour through the potatoes.
Then dust your hands and a plate with cornmeal and take a lump of the potato dough, about the size of a small apple, and pat it out between your hands into a wide oval. It'll be about a cm thick. Put a heaped teaspoonful of the cooked veggies in the middle and fold the dough over and around. It makes a kind of short fat cuttlefish bone shaped patty. Dust generously with cornmeal, and lay out on the plate.
Repeat until all used up. I usually manage five of them from one batch, which is handy because I get five into the big frying pan
Heat a cm of oil in the frying pan.....my cooker's electric, I set it to 4, so that's about 2/3rd of the heat.
Slip the papas rellenos into the pan and fry. They take a few minutes each side, turn and do it again, and they'll end up a crispy rich golden brown crispy shell around mashed potato with a spring filling
Tasty, easy and sort of happy food.
They're also a pantry food, since you can use stuff like cornbeef, or even a heaped teaspoonful of meat paste as the filling.....or wee fishy thing like sardines or pilchards if you like.
Cheese sort of works, but pick your cheese carefully, runny stringy stuff is a mess. Bit of stilton or Danish blue's quite nice though
M
Edit, ought to have said, I use Bistort, Dandelion, and Docken leaves for this sort of thing too. Those all have a sort of bitter bite though, so balance your seasoning appropriately. I like that bite to my Spring greens, but not everyone does.
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