Goose fat potatoes with garlic

Serves 4

(Jason Lowe)

I ate a version of these potatoes in Paris in one of my favourite restaurants, L'Ami Louis. I cooked it for Christmas last year and it went down an absolute treat.

This is the kind of potato dish that you can make a few hours before and then just pop back in the oven while you are eating your starters. In fact, last year I made mine the night before and just left it out at room temperature so that it absorbed all that lovely goose fat.

In Paris I bought a special copper pan with a lid for potato dishes like this – it keeps a perfect even heat during cooking – but a straight-sided cake tin will do the trick too.

2kg large floury potatoes, such as King Edward, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
200g goose fat
10 cloves of garlic, peeled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 5.

Put the potatoes in a pan of salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes, then drain in a colander. Meanwhile, heat the goose fat in a saucepan with the garlic cloves, season and leave to infuse on a very low heat for about 10 minutes.

Transfer a few spoonfuls of the goose fat to a frying pan and fry the blanched potatoes on a high heat, a few at a time, until they begin to colour.

Pack them into a cake tin or a heavy, straight-sided, ovenproof saucepan with the garlic cloves from the goose fat, pressing them down a little with the back of a spoon.

Spoon about a third of the remaining goose fat over and place in the oven. Cook for about 1¼ hours, spooning over more goose fat every so often until it's used up.

Serve the potatoes turned out on to a warmed serving dish.