Spuds are Us 2: The Battered Potato from Liguria called “Frandura”

Well, it’s not that the potatoes receive a battering in a fit of the cook’s exasperation, no, no, no.  Rather, the potatoes are cooked in the oven engulfed in a batter!  How wonderful!  I came across this recipe quite by chance on an Italian TV food programme only last week.  I’d never heard of this “Frandura” … apparently from a Ligurian town called Montalto, this is a recipe that makes use of so-called ‘poor’ ingredients (flour, potatoes and milk) that somehow manage to jushje up the humble spuds into something quite delectable. 

An easy recipe at that.

The peeled potatoes are sliced very thinly, preferably with a mandolin.  They are transferred to a mixing bowl with plenty of water for a while, and then drained and dried as much as possible with a kitchen towel. (In the link to a video below, the food blogger Renata Briano does not bother bathing the sliced potatoes.)

They are then placed in a round baking tray, over which olive oil has been duly slathered, in a circle, so that they overlap slightly.  Just the one layer, maximum two.

Make the batter: flour and  milk,  pinch of salt, grated nutmeg. The batter is thick, it has to be ‘dense’ but also runny enough to be easily slathered over the potatoes.

Pour the batter over the sliced potatoes so that they are all covered under this blanket.
Sprinkle grated parmigiano or pecorino (apparently the latter used to be the preferred cheese back in the day) over the batter.

A final touch: dribble olive oil over the grated cheese and bake until cooked.

When I say ‘bake until cooked’, I seem to remember an oven temperature of 200°C and a baking time of roughly 20 minutes. 

It looks like fresh marjoram can be added too, to the batter I mean. But they did not add any in the TV programme I watched.

Here is my first attempt at a Frandura, just out of the oven.

And below are the remains:

Here is the link I mentioned – I realise many of you do not speak Italian but do not fret, you can just follow the visual part to understand how the recipe works.