“You can’t bake it without meat, it won’t taste good,” said my mum when I asked her to tell me her Patata l-Forn (Oven Potatoes) recipe.
As I believed that the taste I was looking for in this Maltese dish did not come from the meat but from the onions below it, I decided to still attempt doing it without meat first, with slight modifications. It happened to taste the same for me, meat or no meat. Want to prove me wrong? Check out the recipe below.
Patata l-Forn Ingredients
- 400g potatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup vegetable stock
- rock salt
- ground pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Patata l-Forn Method
- Preheat the oven to 175ºC.
- Slice the potatoes, slice the onion and press or finely chop the garlic cloves.
- Parboil the potatoes in boiling salted water for 10 to 12 minutes, until soft around outsides. Drain well and let steam-dry for 1 minute.
- Add the garlic and onion in an oven dish and cover with 1/4 cup of stock.
- Cover the garlic, onion stock mix with the parboiled sliced potatoes.
- Sprinkle around two pinches rock salt and one pinch ground pepper on top of potatoes.
- Pour the rest of the vegetable stock.
- Drizzle the olive oil to have a crunchy crust.
- Pop in the oven and cook for 45 minutes or until beautifully golden.
You might know it with fennel seeds. However, as far as I can remember my mum never added fennel seeds to it. When it was served to me with fennel seeds at restaurants, I always brushed the seeds to the sides.
If you try this recipe, tag me or let me know in the comments below how you have found it. I would also be interested in seeing any variation that you might try out.
