patatas a lo pobre - poor man's potatoes

This is an Andalucian dish, or more like it the Andalucian name for it. It is served all over Spain and here it is the typical accompaniment when you have baked fish. God, what a delight. Fried potatoes that are then baked alongside really big, ugly, firm fleshed rock fish like rotxa or John Dory. Why is it I wonder that the more ugly the fish the tastier it is?

The better fish restaurants take these fish and do almost nothing to them but bake them with a bit of wine and these potatoes. The potatoes are prepared first because despite these big boned mothers being able to handle a some fairly hot baking they can’t stay in the oven long enough to cook a potato from scratch.

You can also eat patatas a lo pobre deliciously next to chicken, rabbit, pork chops etc. Think unctuous potatoes next to golden meat.


To make them you need to heat up some olive oil and put in half a baker’s dozen of unpeeled whole garlic cloves. As they are gently frying, gently sautéing, peel and slice 1/2 kilo of red Ibiza potatoes. DO NOT SETTLE FOR LESS – IBIZA RED POTATOES OR NOTHING (unless of course you cant get them, in which case get the best waxy potatoes you can get and don’t settle for less the next time). Put them into the oil with the garlic. Peel an onion and slice it into fingernail moons and add to the pan. Rip up the pepper discarding the seeds and stalk and add to the pan. Once everything is in, turn the heat up to medium and stir occasionally till it is cooked.

This is one of those dishes that can be prepared as you are cooking it i.e.
whilst the garlic is frying, you are peeling the potatoes, whilst the potatoes are frying you can peel the onion etc. You can also prepare this ahead of time and reheat later.


If you are doing it with a rock fish, get your monger to gut that mother, season it with salt and pepper, splash him with wine, add the cooked potatoes and bake it all in a hot oven (180 with fan, 210 without) until its done (Sorry, timings impossible - when skin breaks and flesh comes away from the bone, it is done. You may have to take it out, look at it and put it back a couple of times. Its head should look like something from a horror film with all the flesh coming away and its eyes popping out)


When deciding how much oil to put in always veer on the side of recklessness and know that with olive oil, more is best.

Ingredients
Olive oil
Salt
1 head of garlic
½ k potatoes
1onion
1 super crisp long Italian green pepper

Method
Fry unpeeled garlic
Fry peeled, sliced potatoes
Season
Fry peeled chopped garlic
Fry sliced onion
Fry deseeded ripped up green peppers