On cultural identities

Exciting news! Today, a couple of other home cooks and I will be video-chatting live with Fuchsia Dunlop as a part of this month's New York Times' Recipe Lab. Dunlop is an expert on a number of China's regional cuisines and author of a fantastic travel memoir and three cookbooks, including Every Grain of Rice. We'll be talking with her about Chinese cooking and a dish from EGR we all made, Gong Bao Chicken. Tune in to Recipe Lab at 3 pm Eastern. It's going to be great! If you're a bit confused about why I'm participating in this chat (when, after all, was the last time that you saw anything Chinese around here?), see below for some background.

Cultural identity can be a funny thing. My mother is Cantonese. I grew up crunching my way through bok choy slicked in oyster sauce, wrinkling my nose at bitter melon, sneaking bits of crispy pork skin when I didn't think anyone was looking. But you wouldn't know it from the way that I cook and eat now, at least not in a way that I can see. Sure, I'm not half-bad at picking clean a small pile of spicy chicken feet, and I can appreciate the gelatinousness of vinegar-braised pork hocks. But I couldn't tell you much about the ingredients and methods. In fact, I don't really know how to cook any of the food I ate growing up. I just wasn't all that interested in learning to back then, and this part of my heritage is something I've always had a bit of a hard time with. I still don't really know how it fits in with who I am.

But lately, I've been trying to get a better handle on Chinese cooking (which is not to say that there's really one thing you could call that). See, at some point next year, I'm going to be travelling with my mother in China for a few weeks. This won't be the first time that I've visited, but I feel as though I've done quite a bit of growing up since my last couple of trips, and I want this one to be different. On past trips, I've left most of the planning up to my mother and her sister, and while we've seen some really amazing things together, the food, at least when travelling outside of Guandong, the province my family is from, has never been particularly good. But this, I'm pretty sure, has only been because we've relied on packaged tours when far away from Guandong. The meals are pre-arranged and totally unremarkable. My mother would probably argue that this is convenient, that it leaves us with time to see and do more, but I of course think that stumbling on a good place to eat just is a part of the seeing and doing. So this time around, I've decided to take charge, and the first step has just been learning more about some of the regional cuisines.

My starting place has been Fuchsia Dunlop's memoir, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper. Dunlop, though British, has spent a great deal of time in China since her early twenties. She was in Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province) initially with a year-long British Council research grant and was supposed to be studying the government's policy on ethnic minorities. But when that didn't go very far (people, unsurprisingly, were reluctant to talk), she found herself drawn to the activity in Sichuanese kitchens and to the often strange but splendid food that came out of them. She talked to everyone she could about Sichuanese food, begged her way into restaurant kitchens to observe and take notes, and eventually trained as a chef at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, the first Westerner ever to have done so. She had found her calling. 

The memoir details Dunlop's experiences in China over the years. It's a compelling blend of sharp observation, personal narrative, and reflection on the cultural differences she has run up against. And food, unsurprisingly, is often at the centre of all this. Dunlop, for example, is struck one evening by how much her time in China has changed her appreciation of texture when she realizes that her parents are politely struggling with the items she's ordered for their hotpot--goose intestines, ox tripe and throat cartilage, rabbits' ears, and small bony catfish, all unpleasantly rubbery, squeaky, crunchy things in the average Westerner's mouth. But for her now, there's a distinct pleasure to these textures. Chinese gastronomy isn't just about flavour but the subtle play of temperature and texture. It takes time, experience, and a lot of polite crunching, to really appreciate this (which is not to say, of course, that all Chinese food is this challenging). Dunlop often connects coming to eat like the Chinese with coming to think like them too, and there definitely is truth to this. It's what, I think, makes her memoir so illuminating when it comes to Chinese culture and what has led me to the kitchen in preparation for this trip.

A couple of weeks ago, with all these thoughts about identity, food, and travel were simmering away in my head, I noticed that Fuchsia Dunlop was the cookbook author who was going to be featured in the New York Times' Recipe Lab this month. Recipe Lab is the Times' monthly feature in which readers are invited to cook a recipe from one of the featured author's books and a few home cooks take part in a live video chat with the author. Seeing this, I applied to participate in the chat and thought that I probably wouldn't hear back. But I did! And it's happening today! So, tune in live to Recipe Lab to see me and a couple of other home cooks chatting with Ms. Dunlop about Chinese cooking today at 3 pm Eastern.

For the video chat, we all cooked the Gong Bao (a.k.a. Kung Pao) Chicken from Dunlop's latest cookbook, Every Grain of Rice. (The cookbook, by the way, is gorgeous. I've been pouring over it obsessively.) If you want to hear more about that, you'll have to tune in today (or stream it later at your convenience). But the day I made the chicken, I was feeling ambitious, so I also made another of Dunlop's dishes to go along with it, Fish-Fragrant Eggplant. This eggplant is crazy good. I'm already planning on making it again later this week. It isn't the quickest dish to put together, but it's worth your time. You first fry slices of eggplant to a gleaming gold. Then, you sizzle Sichuanese chilli bean paste (a savoury paste made from fermented fava beans) in hot oil and add to that lots of minced garlic and ginger. This forms the fragrant base for the sauce into which you'll slip the eggplant. Stock, soy sauce, and a little sugar come next, then the eggplant, followed by cornstarch to add some body to the sauce, and Chinkiang vinegar (a dark, heady rice vinegar) and chopped scallions to finish. (There's no fish in this dish. Fish-fragrant refers to the seasonings in the sauce, which are traditionally used for fish in Sichuanese cooking.) The resulting dish is incredible. The eggplant has a silky, luxurious feel to it in your mouth, and the sauce is somehow tangy, bright, and deeply savoury all at once.

I still haven't attempted anything like the dishes I grew up with. Sichuanese cooking is spicier, punchier, than the cooking you find in Guandong. But I think I might just wait until the next time I see my mother for that. I'll ask her to show me what she does (finally), and I'll cook this eggplant for her.

Fish-Fragrant Eggplant

From Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper (reprinted in Every Grain of Rice)

NOTE: Dunlop says that you can also bake or shallow-fry the eggplant for this dish. But instead of then adding the eggplant to the sauce, she recommends that you pour the finished sauce onto the eggplant--otherwise, it might disintegrate. I chose to deep-fry. However, I used a heavy-bottomed 4-quart stock pot instead of a wok for both the deep-frying and the sauce. I also used homemade vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, just because it was what I had around. You should be able to find Chinkiang vinegar and Sichuanese chilli bean paste at your local Chinese grocery store. Lee Kum Kee is a common brand that sells the latter. As Dunlop says, the brand is Cantonese and their version of the paste has some ingredients you wouldn't find in a traditional Sichuanese paste. Pixian brand is a better choice, but Lee Kum Kee will do.

TO FRY THE EGGPLANT

600-700 g eggplant

Salt

Peanut oil for deep-frying

FOR THE SAUCE

1 1/2 tablespoons Sichuanese chilli paste (dou ban jiang)

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

2/3 cup chicken stock

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon light soy sauce or tamari

3/4 teaspoon cornstarch, mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water

1 1/2 teaspoons Chinkiang vinegar

4 scallions, green parts only, sliced into fine rings

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and then crosswise. Chop each quarter lengthwise into three or four evenly sized chunks. Sprinkle generously with salt and leave for at least 30 minutes to drain.

In a wok, the oil for deep-frying to 356-392 degrees F. Add the eggplant in batches and deep-fry for 3-4 minutes until lightly golden on the outside and soft and buttery within. Remove and drain on paper towel.

Drain off the deep-frying oil, rinse the wok if necessary, and then return it to a medium flame with 2-3 tablespoons of oil. Add the chilli bean paste and stir-fry until the oil is red and fragrant, then add the ginger and garlic and continue to stir-fry for another 20-30 seconds, until they too are fragrant.

Add the stock, sugar, and soy sauce and mix well. Season with salt to taste, if necessary.

Add the fried eggplant to the sauce, bring to a boil, then let let them simmer gently for a few minutes to absorb some of the flavours. Then sprinkle the cornstarch mixture over the eggplant and stir in gently to thicken the sauce. Next, stir in the vinegar and spring onions and leave for a few seconds until the onions have lost their rawness. Finally, remove the pan from heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve.

Effort well spent

Summer is easy on us home cooks. There's hardly any need to fuss at the stove, to coax sweetness and colour onto our plates. There's plenty to be had already. That's the thing about summer. The produce doesn't need much help from us--a few seconds' blanching, a pinch of flaky salt, maybe. But that's it. The rest we can just put in our mouths, and it is good just as it is. How crazy is that?

So, lately, and especially when headed out to the farmers' market, I haven't been thinking too hard about what dinner or the next day's lunch will look like. I've taken to wandering the stretch of stands and going home with just whatever catches my eye. No lists, no set ideas. I figure that things will sort themselves out. And usually they do. Paper-thin slices of radish find their way into a tangle of chilled soba noodles, baby mustard greens into a sharp, garlicky salad. So things have been a little more laid-back around here. (Outside the the market season, I always head out with a list, sometimes two.) 

But I did make an exception this past weekend at the market. I made sure to pick up what I needed for this kohlrabi salad. I first had it at a friend's late last year. And at the time, admittedly, I wasn't expecting much. Kohlrabi was that one member of the cabbage family I just didn't get. Dark, bitter greens--yes. Creamy, starchy roots--still good. But that strange, saw-toothed bulb? It wasn't something that I'd yet come to terms with. This salad, though, changed that. All evening, I kept coming back for more. (And to be clear, there was competition--these pommes Anna and a sumptuous venison roast.) It was hard not to when it had so much going for it--toasted almonds, slivers of fennel, blueberries, salty goat's cheese, mint, and a serious gingery kick. But make no mistake, the kohlrabi, with its earthy sweetness, its addictive crunch, was at the centre of it all. And I got it.

So though it's been good just eating whatever comes my way, having hardly done a thing to it, the little bit of extra effort for this salad is effort well spent. Some things, like a good bulb or two of kohlrabi, are just worth seeking out.

Kohlrabi, Fennel, and Blueberry Salad

From Stephanie Izard via Food & Wine

NOTE: Choosing kohlrabi. Try to find bulbs on the smaller side, about the size of a tennis ball. They'll be sweeter and not so fibrous. The mandoline. I've never actually used a mandoline for this salad. I've always sliced everything by hand. Things might turn out prettier with a mandoline, but I like the extra crunch of the slightly thicker kohlrabi slices. I also just tend to avoid using more kitchen tools than I really have to.

DRESSING

2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger

2 tablespoons minced shallot

1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon pure maple syrup

1/4 cup grapeseed oil

SALAD

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 1/4 pounds kohlrabi, peeled and very thinly sliced on a mandoline

1 fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced on a mandoline

2 ounces semifirm goat cheese, such as Evalon, Garrotxa or Manchester, shaved

1 cup blueberries or pitted, halved sweet cherries

2 tablespoons torn mint leaves

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and toast for 8-10 minutes, until deeply golden. Let cool. 

In a blender, combine the ginger, shallot, vinegar, mayonnaise, mustard, soy sauce, and maple syrup and puree. With the blender on, add the grapeseed oil in a thin stream and blend until creamy. Season the dressing with salt and pepper. 

In a large bowl, toss the kohlrabi with the fennel, cheese, toasted almonds and dressing. Season with salt and pepper and toss to coat. Add the blueberries and mint and toss gently. Serve right away.

Serves 4-6.

This is it

If in the past year or so there was a cookbook that I reached for most, one whose pages caught the spatter of sauce and oil and cream more than any other, it was definitely Nigel Slater's Tender. I cooked from it a lot, and we ate really well, all year long. But this year, it's my feeling that things will be a little different. This, I think, might just be the year of Jerusalem. And, as I'm sure you've already heard, this cookbook is one that dazzles, one that overflows with colour and stories and bold, brilliant flavours. So I won't say much more about it. I'll just say this--I cooked from it all weekend, and, friends, this is a cookbook rich in small splendours. It is one hard to pull away from. I can't wait to cook from it again.

The dish from this past weekend that I want to share with you is one, I think, that between dishes like roasted chicken with clementines and arak and burnt eggplant with garlic, lemon, and pomegranate seeds is easy to overlook. Parsley and barley salad. It sounds about as uninteresting as can be. But it isn't. This salad is bright, bold, and vibrant. The parsley, with its peppery, anise notes, definitely leads, but then there's the creamy za'atar-marinated feta, the crunchy bits of sweet green pepper, the delicate barley, the crushed, roasted cashews, the sharp scallion. I don't know about you, but come February, I'm starved for clean, bright, simple foods. I need something to counter the inevitable heaviness of winter, the rich stews, the parade of roasted root vegetables. I need something that will wake me up. This salad is it. Confetti for the parade. Let it fall on your plate, and you'll see.

I've made this salad a couple of times now and have eaten it just on its own as a late dinner and alongside a number of other things. I think it went particularly well with roasted, cumin-spiced cauliflower. But it's pretty versatile. Think of it as a sort-of wintery tabbouleh, (for those months when tomatoes are just unthinkable).

Parsley and Barley Salad

Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem

Note: About the barley. This salad is all about the parsley. Even so, I do like to add a little more barley than is called for, but do what you will. About the za'atar. Za'atar is a blend of dried thyme, sumac, and roasted sesame seeds. The blend I bought also has oregano and hyssop in it, which I'm not sure I'm all that crazy about, but it's easy enough to make your own at home. About the feta. It's really important to get a good, creamy feta for this salad. It serves as a counterpoint to the sharpness of the salad's other ingredients. None of this insipid, watery stuff.

40-55 g / scant 1/4 - 1/3 cup pearl barley (see above)

150 g / 5 oz good, creamy feta cheese

5 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon za'atar

1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, lightly toasted and crushed

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

80 g / scant 3 oz flat-leaf parsley (2-3 bunches), leaves and fine stems

4 green onions, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed
40 g / 1/3 cup cashews, lightly toasted and coarsely crushed

1 green pepper, seeded and cut into 3/8-inch dice

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the pearl barley in a small saucepan, cover with plenty of water, and boil for 30-35 minutes, until tender but with a bite. Pour into a fine sieve, shake to remove all the water, and transfer to a large bowl.

Break the feta into rough pieces, about 3/4 inch / 2 cm in size, and mix in a small bowl with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the za'atar, the coriander seeds, and the cumin. Gently mic together and leave to marinate while you prepare the rest of the salad.

Chop the parsley finely and place in the bowl with the green onions, garlic, cashew nuts, pepper, allspice, lemon juice, the remaining olive oil, and the cooked barley. Mix together well and season to taste. To serve, divide the salad among four plates and top with the marinated feta.

Serves 4.

And the jewels do shine

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine had a few of us over for a housewarming. We spent a lot of it plopped down with steaming cups of tea, pouring over her cookbook collection. My friend said that we were free to borrow whichever cookbooks we wanted, that she didn't cook from them much and was mostly content just to read through the stories and recipes and be warmed by them. I didn't take her up on her offer that day, but there was one particular book that stuck with me, Sam and Sam Clark's Moro East.
On dark, drizzly days like the ones we've been having here in Chicago, leafing through its pages is just about enough to warm you. The book provides a glimpse into life at the community garden where the Clarks tended a plot--a year in vegetables, small gatherings, and food shared with friends. Though the Clarks are based in London, their book has the feel of some place warmer, some place arid and sun-kissed. This owes mostly to the friends the Clarks made while gardening. Many of them hailed from the Mediterrannean--Turks and Cypriots who knew a thing or two about grape leaves and sumac and grilled lamb. They and the Clarks cooked together, often over charcoal in the open air right by their neighbouring plots. Many of the recipes in the book are contributions from these friends.

I finally asked for my friend's copy just as the temperatures around here were dipping. In return, I snipped her the last few raggedy blooms from the garden out back--something to brighten her new place for a while. By then, it was November. Thanksgiving was just around the corner. I'd been busy writing and hadn't thought much about it. I certainly hadn't placed an order for a turkey. So I started leafing through Moro East, looking for ideas. One of the first recipes I landed on was for something called la caldereta, a bone-in lamb shoulder rubbed with thyme and rosemary and slow-roasted with onions and potatoes. Exactly what I was looking for, and with a pretty name like that, how could I resist? So, that's what we built our Thanksgiving meal around this year, a lamb roast from Extremadura (in western Spain) re-interpreted by a couple of London chefs. It was wildly non-traditional. Think homemade pita bread, chickpea fritters, mint-flecked yogurt, and roasted eggplant scattered with pomegranate seeds. (I don't think our guests minded.)

Thanksgiving was a while ago now. But weeks after, there's one dish from our meal that I'm still thinking of. It's another from Moro East, a side dish that the Clarks call jewelled pumpkin rice. (They really know how to name a dish, now don't they?) It's not much to look at, despite the name. The colours are those of the late autumn landscape--soft browns, bursts of orange, faded greens. But it really is something. The rice is made spectacularly fragrant by cinnamon, allspice, and cardamon. These go in the pot following the butter and onions and toast for a good long while, perfuming your kitchen. And the jewels buried in the rice do shine--tart, chewy currants, roasted butternut squash, and toothsome pistachios. All this is finished with a splash of buttery saffron water, which lends it a lovely roundness.

The friend who lent me the cookbook was one of our Thanksgiving guests. I was gratified when she told me that we'd cooked things that she'd often looked at but would probably have never cooked herself.

I thought that the rice went wonderfully with the lamb shoulder we roasted. Its sweetness complemented the grassy, gamey notes in the roast. With the onions and butternut squash in this dish, its sweetness is rather assertive. You'll want to pair it with something else that can hold its own.

Jewelled Pumpkin Rice

Adapted from Sam and Sam Clark's Moro East
Note: About the butter. Vegans, you can easily replace the butter that the onions cook in with an equal amount of olive oil (75 g), which is what I did for one of my friends at Thanksgiving. After letting the rice rest off heat for 5 minutes, I then set aside his portion and poured the buttery saffron water on the remaining rice. Just as easily, you could omit the butter from the saffron water. I've since made the rice again, this time going half butter, half olive oil. Surprisingly, the butter didn't make much of a difference.

500 g / 1 lb peeled and seeded butternut squash (the flesh of a 750 g squash), cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
a big pinch of saffron (about 50 strands)
100 g / 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided (see note above)
3 inch cinnamon stick
4 allspice berries
1 large or 2 medium onions, thinly sliced across the grain
15 g / 1 1/2 tablespoons dried barberries (or currants)
50 g / 1/2 cup shelled unsalted pistachios
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
300 g / 1 2/3 cup basmati rice, soaked in tepid, salted water for 1 hour
450 ml / 1 4/5 cup vegetable stock

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Toss the diced butternut squash with half of the salt and the olive oil. Spread it in a single layer in a baking tray and roast for 30 minutes or until tender.

Mix the saffron with 3 tablespoons of boiling water and add 25 g (about 2 tablespoons) of the butter, which should melt. Set aside.

Heat the remaining butter in a medium saucepan with the cinnamon and allspice until it foams, then add the onion and the remaining half teaspoon of salt. Fry over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion is soft and starting to colour. Add the barberries, pistachios, and cardamom and cook for 10 minutes more, until the onion is golden and sweet.

Now drain the rice and add to the pan, stirring for a minute or two to coat, then pour in the stock. Taste for seasoning then scatter with the roast squash. Cover with a circle of parchment paper and a tight-fitting lid and cook over high heat for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for a final 5 minutes. Remove the lid and parchment and drizzle with the buttery saffron water. Replace the lid and leave to rest, off the heat, for 5-10 minutes.
Serves 4-6.

We made an occasion of it

Some dishes just call for a crowd. I'm thinking here of layer cakes stacked six inches high, of flakey pastries hot from the oven, of soufflés puffed and golden--dishes just too extravagant, too involved, for a weeknight dinner with only one or two at the table. These are dishes meant to be shared, dishes whose goodness you wouldn't feel right keeping all to yourself, dishes that call for an occasion. The trouble is I always find myself with more dishes like this than occasions on which to make them. And so have my friends, apparently, since we've started making occasions out of these dishes instead of waiting for the right ones to just come along.

Take, for instance, dinner on Saturday night. A hunter friend of a couple of friends of mine had bequeathed to them a neatly butchered venison neck months ago, and we had talked a lot then about getting together for dinner and tackling it. But birthdays came and went, and the neck remained in the dark recesses of their freezer. Recently, though, quite possibly when we were all a little tipsy, we decided that enough was enough. We had to cook this thing. It'd be a shame for it to go to waste. So, finally, just this past weekend, we made an occasion of it. Our friends did the hard work of de-boning, trussing, browning, and braising. Octavian and I brought over side dishes and something sweet. We opened some bottles of wine. It was a great night. A venison neck roast, if you're curious, is kind of like brisket. After a few hours of gentle cooking, it has the same tender, fall-apart qualities. (If you're lucky enough to find yourself with a neck roast but don't know what to do with it, you might want to peek around here.)

But I have to admit, in encouraging this dinner to happen, I had another motive. There was something else that I'd been waiting to make, and I was confident that that neck roast would provide for the occasion. Remember that disastrous dinner a while back--the one with the saltine panna cottas? Well, not all was lost that night. We may have overcooked the duck, but we at least managed to render and save some fat. It was my one consolation, and I was determined to make the most of it. Hence, the potatoes at our venison dinner--Pommes Anna à la graisse de canard.

These potatoes almost call for an occasion all their own. They nearly stole the show on Saturday, anyway. There's no doubt that they're an indulgence--sliced paper-thin and slicked in plenty of butter and duck fat, they pretty well fry where they touch the pan. Crisp, burnished edges five or six layers deep. Creamy and soft beneath an equally burnished lid. They are something to behold and savour. And made for the right occasion and shared with your friends, what's the harm?

Pommes Anna à la graisse de canard
Adapted from Louis Gadby via Epicurious

Note: About the duck fat. The fat I had was rendered from six duck breasts and was just enough for the dish. There's lots of discussion about how best to do it here. You can also purchase rendered duck fat from a reputable source like D'Artagnan. Duck fat gives the potatoes a savouriness that you just don't get with butter. However, classic Pommes Anna calls just for butter, so I'm sure that you could do without--it would just be a bit of a different dish. Make ahead. This is a dish probably best eaten still warm from the oven. I, however, got away with making it earlier in the day and reheating it. I turned the potatoes out of the skillet as instructed but lined the plate with a piece of parchment. I then transferred the potatoes with the parchment onto a cooling rack. Reheated at a gentle 300°F for about 20 minutes, the exterior re-crisped while the insides remained moist and tender.

45 g / 3-4 tablespoons duck fat
70 g / 5 tablespoons butter
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
3 lb Yukon gold or other yellow-fleshed potatoes
1 tablespoon flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced

Put the oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 400°F. 

Melt the fat and butter in a well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron skillet over low heat. Remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Do not wipe the skillet. 

Peel the potatoes and cut crosswise with a mandoline into 1/16-inch-thick slices. Add the potatoes to the bowl with the butter and duck fat--in stages if necessary--and toss to coat. Arrange about a quarter of the potatoes in the skillet in a layer of overlapping concentric circles, starting from the centre and working your way outwards. Season the layer generously with salt and pepper. Make three more layers in the same manner, seasoning each layer as you go. You may end up with five or even six layers, depending on how closely you arrange your potatoes--that's okay.

Cook potatoes over moderate heat for about 15 minutes. Take care--towards the end of cooking, the fat at the edges tends to bubble and fly with some vigour. Press down on potatoes with a wide spatula, then cover surface with parchment paper, and cover skillet with foil. 

Bake until outside edge is golden brown and potatoes in center are tender when pierced with a fork, about 25-30 minutes. Let stand, covered, at room temperature 5 minutes, then carefully loosen edge with a heatproof flexible spatula. Invert a plate with a rim over skillet. Using pot holders and holding plate and skillet together firmly, invert skillet. Remove skillet and sprinkle potato cake with parsley and garlic.

Serves 8.