New new potato recipes

And is it ok to have chips and mash?

Hi, I’m Anna Jones and welcome to my newsletter, a celebration of cooking, vegetables and life. It’s great to have you here. If you have found yourself here but are not yet subscribed then you can sort that out below….

My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here.

Is it ok to have chips with your mash? Asking for a friend.

Through both my pregnancies, there were a few constants. A deep loathing of squash and sweet potato. An aversion to anything you might consider ‘flavour’, garlic, chilli, miso, vinegar, coffee (ok, just anything). A deep love of very cold citrus fruits and their juices, the same for pineapple. A special mention also goes to the Pret cheese and pickle baguette. In my first pregnancy, I’d buy one to eat and a emergency half to keep in my bag to avert impending nausea.

For me eating a small amount of a few, very specific foods was the only way to stave off sickness. But overriding it all was potatoes. Along with bouncy doughy bagels and Ritz crackers, potatoes were my safe space, food haven. Once I asked John to pop to the chip shop at the end of our road for a bag of chips to eat with my mash. Would recommend.

I make light of this now but pregnancy food aversion and general ‘morning’ (as we all know it’s often all-the-time/constant) sickness for me and many others is not breezy or fun. And as someone who has loved food and made it their world, those months of sickness were difficult on many levels.

Now when I see the word potato my mind goes immediately to those times when it was my comfort blanket and a large portion of my nourishment. This week's recipe is not mash and chips, sorry to disappoint.

It’s two new potato recipes. I feel like I have potato in my soul, the Irish side of my soul at least.

New potatoes are here and have been for a while. They start with the Cornish Earlies and then move into Jersey royals, which are at their peak now along with Pembrokeshire Earlies. Most shops have good British new potatoes all summer whether or not they have a cute name.

What makes a potato new? Good question. It’s obviously their mini size. The fact that they have a thin skin so there is no need to peel them. They are, in my opinion, a little sweeter too. New potatoes are usually the waxy varieties of potatoes and have a higher water content than a bigger potato, which makes them especially good for boiling and salads.

This week in homage to my food true love, I have two new recipes for you. A potato salad and a roast new potato with a deep crunch and a chip shop energy that it’s hard not to be too over the top about.

The potato salad is what I consider to be my ideal. All the things I love about every potato salad I have ever made or eaten, brought together in what to me is my greatest hits potato salad. Welcoming artwork for the album cover.

The roast new potatoes puts all other potatoes in the shade, thanks to the elite crunch from the crushing while roasting trick and a swirled herby crème fraiche dip. The white and green swirled dressing, is to me the perfect thing to dip a golden potato into.

The idea here is two potato recipes you can make with the same set of ingredients, so nothing goes in the bin. Two different textures and feelings from the same fresh ingredients. It means you won’t be left with the ends of a bunch of herbs or a few spoons at the bottom of a tub of crème friache.

This week’s recipes (for the Double-dressed potato salad and the Deeply crunchy potatoes with herby dip) and my potato salad rules are for paid subscribers but there are lots of free-to-read potato recipes on my website which are here.

Next week I am so excited to be chatting to Alice Vincent who I am such a fan of, on Thursday 12th June at 12pm UK time. We will be talking about all sorts of things from how we use our senses in the kitchen to our favourite food sounds. Please do join us, to do so you will need the Substack app and you will be sent a notification when we start at 12.

My potato salad rules, ultimate Double-dressed potato salad + Deeply crunchy pickle potatoes with herby dip