Jersey Royals with Pancetta & Pine Nuts by Cherry Menlove

What you will need for this recipe:

500g Jersey Royal Potatoes

70g Pancetta

1 punnet of Salad cress/alfalfa sprouts

50g pine nuts - gently toasted

12 large basil leaves

30g / approx 12 pieces of shaved Parmesan

It’s Tuesday so I’ve got a favourite recipe to share.

Jersey Royals with Pancetta & Pine Nuts
Ahhhhh, there you are! I’m back from a three day weekend with Robert the Husband, family & friends. It was the best sort of break with lots of mooching about, movies and GREAT television. I relax by watching television shows that I have taped during the week. I save them all up like a squirrel storing nuts and then watch them all in one go when I get the chance. It’s AWESOME! I exit from the other end of my T.V. fest feeling totally ready to get going again. The ones I love most of all are Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Keeping up with the Kardashian’s, Desperate Housewives and anything super trashy that comes on to ‘E’ or Diva TV. The more ridiculous the better as I get totally suckered in and forget all my cares and worries. I invariably wail or cry at Grey’s Anatomy. That show gets me every single time. A combination of the music used in the show and the relationships. Although I thought Izzy’s ghost boyfriend plot went on too long, but hey ho, I was still GLUED!!!!

Ok folks, enough of my boring existence, how about a recipe?

Now that we are into the month of May we can officially start on the good stuff. By that I mean the likes of Asparagus and Jersey Royals. Beautiful seasonal produce that’s healthy to eat and in its prime.

Serves 4 as an accompaniment
Takes fifteen minutes to prepare and you can find a weight conversion chart here!

Make it like this….
Place the potatoes in a pan of boiling water and par boil them until they are nice and soft. Don’t over boil them as they are going to be going in to another pan and you don’t want them to break up. While the potatoes are gently simmering place the pancetta into a seperate pan and dry fry it. You don’t need to add any extra oil to the pancetta as it’s so juicy and fatty that it will create it’s own oil. Once the pancetta is starting to turn brown and getting crispier add the softened and drained potatoes and mix the whole lot together. By doing this you not only coat the potatoes with the tasty oil from the pancetta but you give the potatoes a chance to get a bit browner on the outside which gives them a tastier rusticity.
Put to one side.
At this time gently toast the pine nuts by placing them under a warm grill or by dry frying them in a clean frying pan. Then add the potatoes and pancetta to the bowl you wish to serve from,add the pine nuts, the cress and the basil leaves. Give it all a good stir, mixing up the flavours and the ingredients. Season with a small amount of freshly ground black pepper. No salt though, the pancetta is salty enough. When you are ready to place the bowl on to the table add the shavings of parmesan. Don’t add them until you are ready to serve this dish as the cheese will melt and make whole thing look gooey when the look you’re after is fresh and vibrant!

I know you’ll love this as much as I do. It’s really simple, takes hardly any time at all to prepare and tastes a great deal more complicated than it actually is to make.

I’ll be continuing to deconstruct the home & garden myths tomorrow when I’ll show you a rather awesome update from the garden. It won’t stop growing!!!!!

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