Jamie Oliver's Christmas Cookbook
By Jamie Oliver
1 hr 50 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 8
About the recipe
This is one of my favourite side dishes and, frankly, it's so good I sometimes just have it for lunch with a big fresh salad to provide a bit of contrast. It's easy to put together, and always delivers big on flavour, whatever you serve it with.
Recipe From
Ingredients
1kg Maris Piper potatoes
2 onions
2 bulbs of fennel, with herby fronds attached
600ml whole milk
400ml double cream
6 anchovy fillets in oil
8 cloves of garlic
½ a bunch of fresh rosemary (15g)
6 fresh bay leaves
1 whole nutmeg, for grating
50g Parmesan cheese
Top Tip
Mix it up – feel free to swap out the fennel and hero other seasonal veg in this recipe, such as slices of celeriac or tender celery heart.
Method
- Peel the potatoes and onions and trim the fennel bulbs, reserving any herby fennel tops for later.
- Finely slice the potatoes, onions and fennel just under ½cm thick, with patient knife skills or, ideally, on a mandolin (use the guard!).
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.
- Pour the milk and cream into a pan. Tear in the anchovies, crush in the unpeeled garlic through a garlic crusher, add the rosemary sprigs and bay leaves and finely grate in half the nutmeg.
- Bring to a light boil on a medium heat, then immediately turn the heat off and leave to infuse for a few minutes. Fish out and discard the herbs, finely grate and whisk in most of the Parmesan, then taste and season to perfection.
- In a 25cm x 30cm baking dish, layer up the slices of potato, onion and fennel. Pour over the cream mixture and finely grate over the remaining Parmesan.
- Cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 45 minutes, or until tender and nicely golden.
- Remove from the oven, tear and scatter over any reserved fennel tops, and serve.
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