Mich Café: Potatoes, potatos...

I don't know why I find this simple dish so yummy. It's cubed new potatoes or spuds, with either feta or white cheese, cooked in the oven. Maybe it's because it has my favorite ingredients: potatoes and cheese.

It looks great as soon as it comes out of the oven and, once served, I savor every mouthful. I often overindulge when it is on offer as my subconscious stops me counting the helpings.

This isn't a cookbook recipe -- it is just a meal course I watched, and gradually helped, a friend prepare. It goes well with my cabbage and beetroot salad (see My favorite salad, August 31) as a main course.

Ingredients (serves 6)

1 kg of new potatoes or any of your choice, as long as they are small, starchy and don't need peeling
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Juice and zest of half a lemon
125 g feta cheese or white cheese, broken into chunks.I like it best with Pinar's Traditional White Cheese that comes in tubs
A couple of springs of fresh basil (you should always have a pot of basil in the kitchen)

Preparation

Put the unpeeled baby potatoes into a large pan of water with a pinch of slat, bring to the boil and cook for about 20 minutes, until they are just slightly underdone
Drain the potatoes then tip them into a pyrex dish you can serve them in
Cut each of the potatoes into four or five pieces
Sprinkle them with the chunks of feta or white cheese, the lemon juice and zest, the basil leaves and extra virgin olive oil. Gently, but thoroughly combine all the ingredients
Sprinkle some black pepper, extra virgin olive oil and a few more basil leaves on the top before putting the pyrex in the oven