I don’t suppose it’s down to my influence necessarily, but a friend, the other day, did remark on how it seemed that everyone was now jumping on the potato bandwagon. You could certainly be forgiven for thinking as much based on coverage this week alone, where, hot on the heels of my own newspaper piece last week, we had Irish chef (and new dad) Neven Maguire featuring potatoes in general, and Tayto crisps in particular, on this week’s episode of his Home Chef series on RTE televison. And then, in his latest series on Channel 4, Heston Blumenthal, too, turned his gloriously scientific attention, this week, to the potato (you may be able to catch said episode of How To Cook Like Heston for a limited time here on Channel 4’s 4OD service). Triple cooked chips and Heston’s mashed spud perfection were followed by the lesser known delights of smoked potato doughnuts and potato milk jam – the latter a recipe that was right up there with the spud shake in the unusual (and, for some, challenging) spud recipes league. In other words, it had my name written all over it.
Heston’s Potato Milk Jam
When it comes to potatoes, I’ll try anything once, and that includes Heston Blumenthal’s potato milk jam.
As Heston’s recipe over on the Channel 4 website explains, milk jam is better known as dulce de leche (it certainly sounds better when you call it that too). It’s also better described, not as a jam, but as a kind of caramel sauce, one that is, in this case, flavoured with potato skins (I realise at this point that many of you will – perhaps understandably – have run for the hills; for those who are still tuned this way, your reward will be sticky and very sweet).
Potato Milk Jam - as one of the guests on Heston's show said,
it sounds like the first 3 lines of a shopping list
The recipe – which involves cooking roasted or baked potato skins with milk and sugar for a couple of hours – is utterly simple; the mental leap required to get past the use of potato in something dessert-like is, for many people, considerably harder. I will admit that even I was hedging my bets on this one, quartering Heston’s original recipe so as not to end up with a truckload of sauce that (shock, horror) I might not want to use.
I needn’t have worried – though it is unusual and has an earthy undertone you don’t expect to find in a caramel sauce – I’ll find excuses to use it alright. Heston says to use it as a sweet dip or on toast. I say use it on potato pancakes (perhaps with a bit of melted butter) or, given how well potato and apple work together, try it with some apple tart and vanilla ice cream.
Regarding the recipe itself, the Channel 4 website calls for the skins of some baked potatoes, while on the TV show, Heston used potato skins roasted in some oil and salt. You can use either – with the plain baked potato skin which I used, I did find that I needed to add a little salt to the sauce at the end to temper the potato flavour.
You’ll need:
- Skin from a medium-sized baked potato
- 235g demerara sugar
- 215ml whole milk
- pinch of salt
You’ll also need:
- As I was making a fairly small amount, I used a small heavy saucepan (about 18cm) for this – for the original recipe (with ingredients above x4), Heston recommends using a wide-bottomed pan.
The Steps:
- I would recommend that you remove as much potato flesh as possible from your potato skins before using them here. Apart from anything else, the potato flesh can result in a certain graininess of texture in the final result. Needless to remark, you can use the scooped out potato flesh from your baked potato for any number of things.
- Place the sugar, milk and potato skins into your pan and place over a medium-low heat (I heated the mixture enough to bring to a gentle simmer and then kept the heat low enough to just maintain that).
- Cook for about 2 hours, stirring regularly and removing any foam that collects on the surface of the liquid throughout cooking. The mixture should reduce considerably and turn a rich brown colour. The original recipe says that it should gain a thick, spread-like consistency but, really, it’ll be a little more liquid than your average jam – certainly the version Heston made looked that way – though it will thicken somewhat on cooling.
- Strain the mixture and add a small pinch of salt to taste. Allow to cool and, if not using straight away, reserve in a container in the fridge covered with cling film touching the surface.
The Results:
- Makes around 100ml of sauce or jam, depending on what you want to call it.
Could you translate the ingredients for the milk jam into the USA English? I would love to try it, but unfortunately don’t understand your terms….thanks
Hi Ana, my list of American conversions tells me that 235g demerara sugar should be a little over 1 cup (say 1 cup + 1 tablespoon) and 215ml milk should be in or around 1 cup. Hope that helps and good luck with trying the recipe out.
Do you think it could be used like a sauce for a cake or other desserts?
You could try it that way João. It might, for example, work with apple-based desserts or others cakes / desserts where you might typically use, say, a caramel sauce. As I recall, the potato milk jam was quick thick, so you might want to thin it if using in that way. You’ll also want to try it out on its own first to see if it’s to your taste.
I know this is an old post, but do you need to have cooked skins and do you have to process or grate them? Also should the sugar be light or dark brown? I am excited to try this, as I love caramel and I hate throwing away my peels…. One last question, (I HOPE)… can I take my skins and freeze them before making this recipe? I get tons of peels, (not cooked) and hate tossing them away. Thanks
Hi there Sella35 – to answer your questions:
– yes the skins should be cooked (the recipe is based on using skins from potatoes that have been baked)
– no, you don’t need to process or grate the skins, they can be in large pieces (they get strained out at the end)
– demerara suger, which the recipe calls for, is more light brown than dark (though if you really like the flavours of dark brown sugar, I imagine you could try using that too)
– as regards freezing the skins, I haven’t tried that but, again, it may be worth trying if you do have lots of peels around
Hope that helps!
Do you have to remove the excessive water after cooking? I mean here: “Strain the mixture and add a small pinch of salt to taste.”
I’m not really English-speaking and cooking type;)
Thanks in advance! ;)
Hi Ann, no, in this case by ‘strain the mixture’ I mean pass it through some kind of sieve so that you remove the potato skins, there won’t be any excess water in this case.
Potato & Jam in the same sentence – I never imagined this but now I’m curious how does it taste. Hopefully I will like it :)