Chilean chips and sparkling wine

Feel like it’s time to relax and let the worries of the week wash away with good conversation, good wine and good food? Here is a nice, easy recipe if you are looking for inspiration. I love to use the fabulous purple, blue and stripey potatoes from Chiloé, an island just off the coast of Chile, but any potatoes will be fine. In fact you can use other root vegetables if you like.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes – 1 large one or 2-3 small ones per person
• Extra virgin olive oil (avocado oil is nice too)
• Sea salt

Method:

• Put the oven on a high heat.
• Pour some oil onto a baking tray – enough to cover the base and put it in the oven to get nice and hot.
• Peel the potatoes and chop them into very thin slices – the thinner they are, the faster they’ll cook and the crispier they’ll get.
• Take the tray out of the oven, make sure the whole base is covered with oil.
• Quickly put the potato slices on the tray. It’s important that you don’t try to put too many on the tray – each slice must be touching the tray bottom, otherwise they won’t cook evenly.
• Sprinkle with salt.
• Put in the oven.
• After about 10 minutes, take out and turn each potato slice over. Sprinkle with salt.
• Enjoy!

Serve alone as a snack or with pan-fried fish or steak.

Enjoy this with a glass of whatever suits your mood. A chilled sparkling wine is a good option, such as the following:

Domaine Raab Ramsay Organic Blanc de Blancs, Marga Marga

Traditional, in-bottle fermentation sparkling from an unusual small winery. Very refreshing and quite out of the ordinary.

Apaltagua Costera Extra Brut sparkling wine, Leyda Valley

Interesting and delightfully refreshing; an affordable sparkling wine made using the in-bottle fermentation method. Nice salinity thanks to the coastal origin of the grapes.

Bodega Volcanes de Chile Lava Brut, Casablanca Valley

Lovely, fresh, mineral sparkling from the winery which prides itself of producing wines of volcanic origin.