THE ART OF FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER

This simple, seasonal favourite will banish memories of bland school lunches for good

For a long time, I couldn’t get on board with a simple boiled new potato. I quite liked the idea of them, mainly because as a child I was obsessed with The Chronicles of Narnia, in which they often seemed to feature. I loved the descriptions of food in those books. The high tea Lucy and Mr Tumnus share: “a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, for each of them, and then sardines on toast, and then buttered toast, and then toast with honey, and then a sugartopped cake”. The supper of fried fish, boiled potatoes, bread, beer and marmalade roll the children have with the beavers. Doesn’t that just sound like a meal you want to eat every day?

In practice, I think school dinners put me off the humble boiled potato, but as an adult I’ve come round to them and more than made up for lost time. Jersey Royal season is upon us and I did think of giving you a recipe for Jerseys today, but as the best way to eat them is simply with butter, salt and pepper it seemed a bit of a cop-out. This way of dressing common or garden new pots is a real winner. Half the soft, sweet confit garlic cloves get crushed into a bowl of sour cream, flaky salt, lemon juice and spring onions. The hot, slightly smashed potatoes soak up the dressing. Scatter more garlic cloves over the whole thing and a good handful of chives for an extra oniony punch.

I could eat a whole bowl of these on their own, but they’re great alongside fish or perhaps a roast chicken and some perfect, in-season British asparagus. You could even serve this as a kind of nibble if you held the dressing back, popped it in a bowl and let everyone dunk warm potatoes into the garlicky sour cream.