Saturday, March 17, 2007

Potato and cheese picnic thingees


For this, I modified a recipe that I have used in the past.


This is the original recipe.
Potato Biscuits
115g/4oz butter
115g/4oz mashed potatoes
150g/5oz flour
1 egg, beaten
Toppings:
Caraway seeds, sesame seeds, parmesan cheese.

preheat to 220c/425f
Put butter, mashed potato, and flour in a bowl, season with salt, and mix to a soft dough. Knead for a few seconds, wrap in cling film and chill for about 30 minutes.
Roll out the dough to about 1/3 inch thick, brush with beaten egg, and cut into strips 3/4 x 3 inches thick.
Transfer to a baking sheet, sprinkle with topping of your choice and bake for 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
I’ve made these before and they are always a big hit. This time I wanted to make them a little more substantial, so I made a few changes.

I made a double batch of the dough, and rolled out one half of it slightly thinner then usual. I put it on the baking sheet without cutting it up, threw some grated cheddar cheese on top, then rolled out the other half and put that on top of the whole thing so it was kind of like a big potato cheese sandwich type thing. I cooked it a couple minutes longer then usual, but only a couple of minutes, just till it’s nice and brown.

I made this for a picnic, and it worked out really nicely. Ideally I should have let it cool all the way before cutting it up and wrapping it. I wrapped it almost right out of the oven, and it got a tiny bit soggy. Still, everybody loved it, the boys were crazy for it. Our little one was so excited about it that he kept the last piece. He just carried it around for about an hour, clutched tightly in his little fist. We kept trying to convince him that it would be easier to climb if he put it down, but he would just look at us doubtfully and then take another little taste, before trying to climb a fallen log one-handed.




This is a great, super kid friendly way to use up any extra potatoes you have lying around. The original recipe is really great too, they come out kind of chewy and much more grown up tasting (though still great for kids too)