Mexican Potatoes With Cheese Sauce

This recipe comes from “Preserved” by Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton. I haven’t made it, but it sounds like a good vegetarian main dish or go with anything side dish. The recipe calls for 8 potatoes, but the authors fail to specify a size or weight. As there is no instruction to cut or slice the potatoes, my guess is that you’ll need 8 medium potatoes or between 1 and 1 1/2 lbs, depending on how and what you plan to serve this with. Posted for Zaar World Tour 2005.

• Ready In: 30 mins
• Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

•  salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1⁄2  lemon, juice of
• 3  dried hot red chilies, deseeded and crumbed
• 1  onion, sliced into rings
• 8  potatoes, peeled
• 1  fresh chili pepper, cut into thin strips (green or red)
• 2  hard-boiled eggs, halved, to garnish
• 12  black olives, to garnish

• SAUCE

• 175  g mozzarella cheese, roughly grated
• 225  ml heavy cream
• 1  teaspoon turmeric
• 1  fresh chili pepper, finely chopped (green or red)
• 3  tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Mix the lemon juice and dried chillies in a bowl, season with salt and pepper, add the onion rings and leave to marinate until required (you could do this step more in advance if you like).
2. Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water for about 15 minutes, or until cooked.
3. While the potatoes are cooking make the sauce by combining all the ingredients except the olive oil in a blender; then heat the oil in a pan, add the blended sauce ingredients and simmer for about 5 minutes until the sauce thickens.
4. TO ASSEMBLE THE DISH: drain the potatoes and place in a warmed serving dish, pour the sauce on top; drain the onion rings and scatter them and the chili strips over the top of the dish; garnish with hard-boiled eggs and olives.