Potato Roses Recipe

Beware making something nice for a wedding tasting - you might have to reprocate it on the wedding day itself!

And so it proved with these potato roses.

Your wedding is your special day. There's no second take, so you have to try everything possible to make it the best you can. I certainly tried to push out all the stops for the weddings we catered for and often made things nobody else would do because they're just too time consuming and which increase the pressure in the kitchen on the day. But I always loved the challenge. 

We were making these late in to the night prior to the wedding day, kind of wishing I'd never had the idea. Then they chill overnight and you can reheat them through the oven just before serving. 

You need to start with Maris Piper potatoes - they are fail safe crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. There's a great video here which shows how they're done. That recipe uses bacon as well - what a great idea!  

Ingredients

8 large Maris Piper Potatoes - look for a more oven tubular shape, peeled

100g Butter, melted (might need slightly more - depending on how you go)

Fresh thyme, taken off the stalk as individual leaves

Fresh garlic, chopped

Salt and freshly ground pepper. You could try using smoked salt.

How to lay out potatoes

Tip

It's a good idea to make sure the potatoes are at room temperature. I kept mine in the fridge to keep them fresh, or outside in the winter, so when I was making these potato roses I left the potatoes out in the kitchen to come up to temperature.

If the potatoes are too cold when you mix the melted butter through, the butter solidifies before you have time to lay them out. 

However, if the butter does set you can nuke them in the microwave for a minute or so just to melt the butter again and you're good to go.

Method

1. Before starting, lightly butter a muffin tin. 
2. Slice the potatoes thinly on the mandolin. Discard the end pieces (you can bake these separately as crisp snacks with some olive oil & salt). You just want nice big potato slices. 
3. Place the potatoes in a mixing bowl with the melted butter, garlic and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Mix together very well, trying to separate out each slice of potato. 
4. Lay out the potato slices on your kitchen work surface as above. Start with one slice, then overlap with another and so on in a line. I found 16 - 20 slices made a decent portion. 1 line makes one portion. 
5. When you have laid them all out, roll them tight like a cigar from the bottom to the top. Then place in the muffin tin as seen above and unfurl slightly into a rose shape. They spread out more as they cook - as you see below. 
6. To bake I found the best way was at 160 oC for about 45 minutes, then turn the oven temperature up to 180 oC for further 10 - 15 minutes to crisp them up. Test them with a knife - the centre should be soft like chips. If they are not cooked in the middle but golden on the edges cover in tin foil to stop them browning and allow them to carry on cooking.  
7. Lift out of the muffin case with a mini palette knife. 
8. If you are cooking these in advance, halt them at the 45 minute point where they are still just soft in the middle, but not fully crisped up, like the ones at the top of this page. At this point you can cool them, cover them and refrigerate them till you want to use. They should last 3 days in the fridge. 
Then, when you want to finish them off, place in a preheated oven at 180 oC for 10 - 15 minutes till hot, crisp and golden.