Pan Haggerty
Preparation info
Difficulty
Easy
Serves
4
Appears in
Pan haggerty sits somewhere between a French gratin and a Welsh onion cake, being a layered dish of potatoes, cheese and onion, cooked on the hob in a frying pan. It is properly made with beef dripping, but can also be made with butter, lard or goose fat – or, for a distinctly Mediterranean slant, with olive oil, in which case call it something else to avoid recriminations from purists.
Ingredients
550 g 1¼ lb 60 g 2 oz 285 g 10 oz 140 g 5 oz - salt and pepper
Method
Peel the potatoes and slice them as thinly as you can, ideally on a mandolin grater. Soak in cold water for 10 minutes, drain and dry with a cloth. (This is not, strictly speaking, essential but will help prevent exuded starch from causing the potatoes to stick to the pan.)
Put a 23-cm / 9-inch frying pan over a low heat and melt your chosen fat. Remove the pan from the heat and cover the base with a layer of overlapping potato slices. Season with salt and pepper, then put on a layer of onion, then one of cheese, repeating the layers until all the ingredients are used up and finishing with a layer of potatoes. Brush this top layer with melted fat.
Return to a low heat for 20–25 minutes, turning the pan at regular intervals to ensure an even heat distribution.
Transfer the pan to under a grill, also set to a low temperature, for about 10 minutes. Turn the grill to maximum briefly and, as soon as the potatoes are a uniform golden brown, transfer back to the hob over a high heat for a minute.
Slide the haggerty out on a cutting board and slice into wedges like a tart. Serve while still very hot.
© 1998 Alastair Little. All rights reserved.