Barbecue potato dish

Potato dish, as any fule kno, is essential for an Australian-style barbecue. Much anticipated, and often unsuccessful (like most elements of an Australian barbecue...) it's basically a potato gratin cooked slowly in the oven, long before the meat hits the grill.

Or so I thought.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a pre-made supermarket potato gratin and a lovely rib of beef for our Sunday lunch, and decided to cook the whole lot in the barbecue. It was magnificent. The potatoes took on a delicious subtle smokiness and were meltingly tender.

First attempt, with supermarket potato gratin

So we decided to do it from scratch the following week. For the two of us, I used two medium baking potatoes, two cloves of garlic and 125ml of goats double cream, seasoned with a little salt, a lot of pepper and a grating of nutmeg. I layered it up in a little foil baking dish, and it merrily bubbled away on the barbecue (indirect heat, lid closed) for just under an hour, along with a chicken. Again, the potatoes were perfectly melting with a beautiful smoky flavour. This will definitely be our go-to method for potatoes, although next time I may use my wine and stock recipe - make it slightly lighter!

From scratch