Baked Potatoes with Tonnato Sauce
Spuds you will definitely like. Baked sweet and regular potatoes served with a creamy tonnato sauce and topped with a perfectly poached egg. Tonnato is an Italian sauce, from the Piedmontese region, that was originally served with veal. I much prefer this potato based surf & turf version to the original. This savoury/ salty condiment lends itself favourably to a wide range of dishes: from green beans and asparagus to roasted vegetable tray-bakes.
Serves 2/3
Potatoes for baking – size/ number depending on appetites: I like a mix of sweet and Agria (a yellow-fleshed potato)
1 fresh free-range egg per person for poaching
Tonnato Sauce
1 fresh free-range egg
4 anchovy fillets
Juice of ½ lemon + grated zest (if organic)
1 tbsp capers
Basil leaves from 2 sprigs
1 garlic clove; finely sliced
1 small tin tuna (~60g): drained
~ 100ml Olive oil
Himalayan salt
Freshly milled black peppercorns
Basil leaves, anchovy fillets and caper berries to serve
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 210ºC. Scrub the spuds before baking for 50 minutes or until the skins are crispy and the interiors are soft and fluffy – the cooking time will depend on the size of the potato and remember that sweet potatoes cook far quicker than regular potatoes of the same size.
For the sauce, add the anchovies, lemon juice, capers, garlic basil leaves and tuna to a blender or food processor. Then bring a medium saucepan, half filled with water, to the boil. Gently lower in the egg (in its shell!) and boil for two minutes. Run the egg under cold water until it is cool enough to handle. Break the egg into the blender and blend to a paste. Then slowly add the oil until you have the consistency of thin mayonnaise.
To produce the perfectly poached eggs, make sure your eggs are fresh and just out of the fridge. Bring your medium sized pan, half filled with water back up to the boil. Add a little vinegar – a mild acid – to the water, this will denature the proteins and helps to coagulate the egg white. Turn off the heat to the pan and give the water a stir to produce a little vortex. Over the centre of the pan – and as close to the surface of the water as possible, gently crack in the egg. leave the egg for about 3 minutes or until the egg white is just set.
To plate up, cut the potatoes and give them a little squeeze to open them up. pour over the tonnato sauce and place the poached egg in the centre. Finish with a few caper berries, basil leaves and an anchovy fillet.
JAMx