A traditional German dish called ‘Himmel und Erde’ that originated from the Southern German word for potato, erdapfel or ‘earth apple’ inspired this recipe along with our beautiful new season West Australian potatoes. Potatoes and apples may seem an odd combination but when both are cooked together with heavily spiced and caramelised onions, they meld together into a delicious side dish that could happily accompany lamb, pork, chicken, sausages or game meats or be a wonderful stand-alone main dish for lunch.
Ingredients
(Serves 4)
1 lrg onion, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 ½ tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp mild curry powder
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
salt flakes & freshly cracked pepper
4 medium Rodeo or Royal Blue potatoes
2 Pink Lady apples, skin on, quartered & cored
250 ml whipping cream
1 cup fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
¼ cup small fresh basil leaves, for garnish
Method
- Using a large heavy stove-to-oven frying pan, gently fry the onion in the olive oil together with the cumin seeds, curry powder, chilli flakes and a little seasoning until softened and fragrant.
- Reserve half the onion mix to the side and evenly scatter the other half over the base of the pan.
- Preheat oven to 200˚C.
- Thinly slice the potatoes and place in a bowl of water. Thinly slice the apple quarters.
- Drain the potatoes well and toss with the apple slices, cream, cup of chopped basil and seasoning.
- Evenly layer the mixture on top of the cooked onion in the pan and then scatter over the reserved onion.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake 40 minutes.
- Increase the oven temperature to 220˚C, remove the foil and cook a further 10 minutes.
- Serve with extra salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper and garnish with the small fresh basil leaves.
