New Potatoes
Your new potatoes should be ready in June. You'll know you can start digging them up once your plants start to produce flowers.
For maximum flavour leave them in the ground till you need them.
The waxy texture of new Charlotte potatoes makes them perfect for boiling, roasting, sauteeing and salads. For baked potatoes and mash use main crop potatoes like King Edward (although these are harder to grow because of problems with blight).
Find cooking ideas below, but they're so delicious you really don't need to do much to them.
Perfect Boiled Potatoes
Put the potatoes in cold salted water and bring to the boil. Boil gently for 10-15 minutes until the centres are soft when pierced with a sharp knife. Drain, add a knob of butter. Sprinkle with a little chopped mint if you have any. Season with salt and pepper. Serve steaming.
Roast New Potatoes with Thyme and Lemon
Put 1kg of new potatoes in a roasting pan, with a lemon cut into 8 wedges. Scatter over a few thyme sprigs. Drizzle over some olive oil, season and bake at 220C for about 1 hour. Turn a couple of times to lubricate. Serve when the potatoes are nicely patched with brown. It also works well with rosemary instead of thyme and butter substituted for the olive oil.
Gratin Dauphinois
Cut a garlic clove in half and rub round an ovenproof dish. Then grease the dish with a little butter. Scrub 1kg of potatoes and cut very thin slices and layer them in the dish.
Mix 2 eggs with a teaspoon of salt and a pint of warmed milk or cream. Pour over the potatoes and dot with knobs of butter.
Bake in a preheated oven at 220C for an hour. If the top gets too brown, cover with foil.
For a tasty variation, alternate the layers of potatoes with layers of celeriac.
Sauteed Potatoes with Chorizo
Boil your potatoes for about 8 minutes, drain and chop in half. Cut 200g chorizo into chunks and fry in an ovenproof pan for a few minutes with some olive oil. Then add the potatoes, toss in the oil and roast in a preheated oven for 20 minutes until golden. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.
Sauteed potatoes
The waxy texture of new potatoes also makes them perfect for sauteing because they won't break up like more floury maincrop varieties. Boil the potatoes in their skins for 20 minutes until tender. Peel and cut into 1/2 in slices and fry in a pan with a little oil until golden brown all over. To finish in style, stir in a knob of butter and season with salt and pepper.
Make Lyonaise potatoes by frying a few slices of onion in butter and adding these too.