Esther Walker - Bad Cook

4 And that’s basically it. Turn the meat once or twice during cooking and keep an eye on the liquid level – if it looks like it’s drying out, throw in some more stock or water. After 2-ish hours take the lid off, turn the heat up and bubble to reduce the sauce a bit.

The worst thing about me is my hypochondria. All it takes is a few aches and pains or my tonsils playing up and I am entirely convinced that I am going to die.

Of what, I’m not sure. I have to leave it for a bit before I go to the doctor again (I was in there about a fortnight ago convinced I had haemorrhagic fever) or she’ll put me on her ‘heartsink’ list and I do, genuinely, want her to like me.

Coming a close second to my hypochondria is my terror of getting fat. Some people carry a bit of extra weight and just look glossy and healthy. I look like a pudding. But still, I am unnaturally obsessed with not putting on weight. So for the last four years I have been avoiding carbohydrate and hardly ever eat pasta, potatoes, rice or bread.

And when I say never, I mean I eat them from time to time and feel guilty. And then bloated.

Anyway, what with me certain to die any moment from my mystery terminal thingy, when Giles suggested last night that he make a Tartafin, a sort of layered potato pie, covered in cheese, I said okay, sure, why the hell not. I’m dying anyway, I will yell weakly from the sofa in the living room to the kitchen where Giles is pottering about, so I might as well go out with happy potato-and-cheese memories. And so off Giles will go to make me a Tartafin. Even when feeling truly awful, I am usually still alive in the morning after a previous night’s carbohydrate blow-out, which must say something.

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced or Microplaned

some olive oil

3 waxy potatoes, like a Maris Piper, sliced as thinly as you can. If you are Angela Hartnett, they will be very thin; if you are me, some will be really thin, others less so. This is ok, just do your best.

salt and pepper

75g butter

some cheese – ideally a kind of hard-ish Swiss cheese. Nothing blue and, if you can help it, not too much Cheddar, which will just make everything taste like Cheddar and it’s SO greasy …

1 Cook the garlic in the olive oil over a low heat until the garlic is softened but not brown. Ideally, you’d use some kind of cast iron, Le Creuset-type pot, but we used a crappo stainless steel saucepan of a medium size and it worked fine.

2 Add the potatoes, a generous scrunch of salt and pepper and some butter and swirl around for a bit, maybe 2 minutes, until everything has been coated in seasoning and fat (but be gentle so that the potato slices don’t snap in half).

3 Then with whatever kitchen implement you fancy, re-arrange the potato slices horizontally in layers and put the lid on.

4 Cook on a very low heat for about 30 minutes; you know they are ready when you can sink a sharp knife through all the layers and pull it out with ease.

5 Layer your cheese on top of the potato – we used the hard ends of the cheeses we had lying around – a Comté, Parmesan, some truffle Brie and a bit of old Cheddar. Cook for another 5 or 6 minutes until the cheese is all melty.

After cooking, the bottom of the pan will be very brown and hard-baked. This is the best bit, if you can hack it off the bottom. To clean, leave overnight soaking in some cold water with a couple of drops of washing-up liquid. Trust me – it will defy any dishwasher. A long soak is the only answer.

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