Purple Potatoes from Albert Bartlet!

I am massive potato fan, potatoes are my second fave carb after rice. When Albert Bartlet sent me some yummy potatoes to write about, a big box of Roosters and Purple Majesty, I was in potato heaven!

Albert Bartlet are the kings of potato production. You have probably had some of their Roosters, perfect little red potatoes which are happy roasted, mashed, chipped, wedged, boiled or whatever you fancy doing with them. They are rather posh potatoes, with clean modern packaging and perfect potatoes every time, they don't even look like they have seen dirt. They really are good spuds though, the red skins look and taste very nice, and I think they are the best potatoes for making wedges with as the texture crisps up well on the outside, the skin is not too thick, and they remain fluffy on the inside. The skins have a pleasant potato flavour without being too strong. I know, I know, they are just spuds, how can I get that excited by them. But when you don't eat wheaty carbs you become excited about the nice non wheaty ones.

Bartlets also sent me some Purple Majesty just in time for Halloween. These spuds are sold at Sainsburys and I'm not ashamed to admit they got me rather excited. With their skins on they are very dark, almost black straight from the packet. Cut them open and the insides are very purple, and very pretty. Good news is they don't stain things much though, so you don't get purple hands.

I had quite a few, so gave some to my Nieces for their Halloween tea, and some to the vicar next door. The vicars wife came running out the house just as I was leaving asking me "what to do with them?", not a question I usually get about spuds. She was happy to hear you just treat them like normal spuds. Bartlets had also sent me a recipe card which I gave her to calm her purple potato panic down a notch.

I made wedges with mine, I'm wedges obsessed perhaps. I prepared them just the same as my normal potatoes, though due to the colour they are a bit harder to tell when they are done on sight only, as you cant see when they are going brown as easily. I had friends around for dinner, so we did a full taste test. Just like the Roosters the wedges were crispy and caramelized on the outside and fluffy inside. The skins thin and with a nice clean potato taste. One of my guests said she could "taste the purple", but we couldn't agree what purple tastes like (unlike pink icing, which tastes of strawberry even if its not flavoured). We ate the lot, and I had made loads, so I think that means they were a success.

For my little boy I made a purple roasted potato the next day. He is only just one year old, and likes to feed himself. The purple mash potato was treated with some trepidation, he giggled at it when I cut it open, but he soon tucked in after some prolonged poking and the first tentative mouthful. They are little spuds, ok size for a kiddy roast potato though.

So... this is quite a long article on the humble potato. But it's time potatoes were jazzed up a bit, and these purple ones are the jazzyest potatoes I have seen for a long while. I'm all for sexing up vegetables, I have heard some sexy multicolored beetroots are next on Sainsburys agenda, and I can't wait!

For transparency Albert Bartlet send me some potatoes for free via Sainsburys, but I could say what I like and have not been paid for this article, as is always the way on my blog.