Potato, Bacon & Onion Bake

I am a big fan of the MoneySavingExpert site (although I’m a silent lurker), and I could honestly spend HOURS on their Complete Cooking Collection .  Ok, I admit it. I already have spent hours on the cooking collection, plenty of them.

There’s a forum thread where people post recipes that cost no more than 50p for two people*.  You’d think that would be quite difficult, but nay, there are 16 pages worth of suggestions!  That’s where I found the recipe for this potato, bacon and onion bake.  You can find the original recipe here, but I have scaled up my recipe to feed 3 greedy potato fiends:

Ingredients:

4 baking potatoes, sliced thinly

8 rashers bacon, unsmoked (I cut the fat off cos I hate the texture *boak*)

2 onions, slices thinly

200ml milk, I used semi-skimmed

As you can see, I went to town with my Mandolin slicer; it’s BETTER than sliced bread, I tell ye.

I layered them in the following order: Potatoes (season with salt & pepper), onions, bacon.

I done that twice, then finished with a layer of totties:

I poured over the milk, seasoned, then baked this at 170 degrees for about an hour and 15 mins.  I would recommend the slower baking, as it really intensifies the flavour!  I covered it with foil about half way through as it was getting burnt on top (next time I’ll cover it with foil from the start, then remove for the last 15 mins or so):

So, do I serve the delicate purple sprouting broccoli?  The medley of Julienne vegetables?

Of course not.  This type of dish deserves baked beans, and plenty of them.

This is cheap, cheerful, extremely easy and utterly tasty.  There’s a time and a place for fancy food.  This is comfort food at it’s best.

You could substitute the milk for cream if you want to increase the richness, or top it with cheese to make it more indulgent.  It doesn’t need it though.  The salty bacon seeps through and flavours everything beautifully and the potatoes are deliciously moreish with a light crispiness.  I salivate in remembrance. 

Next time, I’m making enough leftovers for lunch the next day.  I’d never tire of this.

Try it 🙂 x

*The thread was started in 2006, so 50p probably wouldn’t apply these days with the inflation.  But still great value for money!

11 Comments

  1. hopeeternal

    This sounds a bit like a no nonsense UK version of Tartiflette, the French Alpine dish we love and I have on my site, crossed with Lyonnaise Potatoes. The French Tartiflette uses cheese, traditionally Reblochon which raises the price somewhat. I like the sound of this variation without.
    Thanks for the pointer to the MSE Complete Cooking Collection and the feed 2 for 50p section, though I notice that the dates of posting start from 2006 so with inflation perhaps with some recipes we are talking about feeding 2 for £1 by now! Still some good cut price ideas though.
    hopeeternal
    ‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’

  3. Anne

    I’m a lurker on MSE too!

    The potato bake looks lush, have made similar but never considered putting bacon in before, will have to definitely try this soon! The OH loves baked beans too so the whole dish would make him a happy boy!

    1. noblenourishment

      We’re all coming out of the MSE closet now haha 🙂

      I can’t wait to make this again soon; it’s so tasty and comforting 🙂 hope you and your OH enjoy it!

  4. Corina

    This looks great. I would probably not be able to stop myself from adding a little cheese on top though, or maybe make a cheesey roux sauce and use that instead of the milk.

  5. Anonymous

    Maybe you may want to add a twitter icon to your website. Just marked down this site, but I must make it manually. Simply my suggestion.

    1. noblenourishment

      Thanks for the suggestion; I have tried to add the social network icons to my site, but I don’t think it’s allowed because it’s WordPress (if someone would care to tell me different and help me put it on?). I have added a “Follow Me” page, with links to all my social network pages, have a peek 🙂

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