Cheesy herbed potatoes Anna

Traditional potatoes Anna (or pommes Anna as they’re known – which always confused me because ‘pommes’ is French for apples – ‘pommes de terre’ means potatoes) are made with just potatoes and butter, but since I’m ridiculously predictable and can’t imagine anything without cheese, I had to add some parmesan and herbs to make them a bit more interesting. And it worked so well – these were gorgeous. They go perfectly alongside a protein and some vegetables, and they’d be a great little side dish for a dinner party – they look pretty and fairly impressive, but they’re easy to make. You just layer up your ingredients – sliced potatoes, butter, cheese and herbs – and then bake, and they magically stick together into these little towers (it’s important not to rinse your potato slices, as the starch helps them to stick).

I found that a fairly small amount of potato actually went quite a long way in this recipe – each of these little stacks were made from just one medium-sized potato, much smaller than those I would use for baked potatoes. Once you chop them all up it looks like far more. Depending on what you’re serving them with, one of the little rounds each should be enough (we had 2 each, because we’re greedy). Especially if you’re using them for a posh dinner party (unlike me, who ate them in my pyjamas), less is usually more.

On an entirely unrelated note, I have become somewhat obsessed with Gossip Girl. I know I’m about six years too late, and I also know that it’s objectively complete rubbish, but I can’t help enjoying it. It’s the perfect show to have on in the background while I’m working on my computer, because it doesn’t take too much brain power. Plus I like to imagine I’m rich and it helps. Unfortunately I’ve already found out who Gossip Girl is (a revalation which I think comes at the very end of the last series), due to my fangirl-style Googling (I wasn’t trying to find out who it was, but when you Google a certain character’s name, the information was bound to appear), but I still kind of don’t believe it.

Anyway, that was entirely irrelevant. Unless, I suppose, you’re going to eat these cheesy potatoes Anna at a Blair Waldorf-esque dinner party?