Welsh Rarebit Potatoes with Cavolo Nero

These Welsh Rarebit Potatoes with Cavolo Nero feature a strong cheese sauce made with hard cider, two mature cheeses, English mustard powder and Worcestershire sauce.

There’s a little café in town where we like to go for breakfast. It’s right next to the central market and close to the fish market so we park, enjoy a delightful breakfast and then get our shopping done. My perfect outing. 

One of my favorite dishes at Rosie's Café is their Welsh rarebit, a lovely slice of toast heaped with a bitey cheese sauce then popped under the broiler/grill until it bubbles and turns golden. It is most delightful, rich and filling. 

I make a similar sauce for cauliflower cheese but never thought to top potatoes with it until I saw a recipe in delicious. magazine. This is my rendition of that recipe, with the addition of the greens.

Welsh Rarebit Potatoes with Cavolo Nero

I use the very handy real bacon crumbles I buy in Costco for this dish but it’s never crispy enough, hence the extra frying step. If your bacon is already cooked extra crispy, you can skip that. Cavolo Nero is also known as Tuscan kale. You can use regular kale if it’s not available. 

Ingredients

7 oz or 200g cavolo nero/Tuscan kale

2 green onions, green part only

1/3 cup or 40g cooked bacon, crumbled

1 lb or 450g Jersey royals or other new potatoes, halved if large

1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups or 295-359ml dry cider (I use Strongbow Original)

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons plain flour

Splash Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon English mustard powder (I use Colman's)

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 1/2 oz or 100g mature cheddar, coarsely grated

3 1/2 oz or 100g Gruyere or Comté, coarsely grated

Method

Wash the cavolo nero well then remove the hard stalks.  (You can discard/compost these or save them for making vegetable stock later.) 

Cut the leaves roughly. 

 I forgot to wash first so I soaked, rinsed and spinned three times after chopping. It is easier to wash the whole leaves so do as I say, not as I did! 

Chop the green onions finely and set aside a small amount for garnish. 

Use a pot that will fit your potatoes nicely in a single layer, then pour in enough cider to just cover them and the 1/4 teaspoon salt. 

Bring to the boil, covered with a lid, then simmer for 15-18 minutes until tender to the point of a knife. 

Drain off the cider into a heatproof vessel. You should have about 1 cup or 240ml (if not, make up the difference with water or extra cider.)

While the potatoes are simmering, fry your bacon bits in a skillet till they are extra crispy. Add in the cavolo nero leaves and cook until they are wilted and any liquid they produce has evaporated. These are sturdy greens that take a while to cook. I put a lid on at the beginning, then remove the lid so the liquid can evaporate.

Remove the bacon and cavolo nero to a bowl, leaving behind any bacon fat. 

Add the butter to the bacon pan over a medium heat, then add the flour and cook for a few minutes, stirring to create a light roux. 

Gradually stir or whisk in the reserved cider to make a smooth sauce.

Mix in the Worcestershire sauce, mustard and cayenne pepper, then simmer for a few minutes. 

Add the cheeses and mix until fully melted. 

Sprinkle in the bigger pile of chopped green onions. 

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. 

Put the potatoes in a baking dish or casserole then add in the cavolo nero with bacon. Use a spoon to tuck the greens around the potatoes to create a single layer. 

Spoon the cheese sauce over the potatoes and cavolo nero and sprinkle on the reserved chopped green onions.

Bake in the preheated oven until hot and bubbling, about 20 minutes, finishing it off with about five minutes under the broiler/grill to brown. 

Serve bubbling hot! This delicious dish is rich enough to be served as a main. 

Enjoy! 

Welcome to the 23th edition of Alphabet Challenge 2025, brought to you by the letter W. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the W recipes below:

• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Chocolate Mint Whoopie Pies 
• Food Lust People Love: Welsh Rarebit Potatoes with Cavolo Nero 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Cranberry Wild Rice 
• A Messy Kitchen: French Onion Sausage and White Bean Bake 
• Sneha’s Recipe: White Chicken 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Waldorf Salad 
• Blogghetti: Homemade White Gravy Mix 
• Culinary Cam: Frisky Whiskey Chocolate Cake 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Sausage and Wild Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash
• Palatable Pastime: Warm Potato Salad with Kielbasa 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Whiskey
  
  

Here are my posts for the 2025 alphabet challenge, thus far:

A: Roasted Asparagus Soup

B: Blistered Sugar Snap Peas

C. Jersey Royal Chicken Chorizo Traybake 

D. Small Batch Dried Apricot Jam 

E. Whipped Espresso Cream 

F. Fish Sauce Roasted Chicken 

G. Extra Herby Gremolata 

H. Smoked Herring Spread 

I.  Fresh Cherry Ice Cream 

J. Small Batch Strawberry Jam 

K. Kiwi Tomato Feta Salad 

L. Lobster Butter 

M. Milk-Roasted Chicken 

N. Nocciolata Swirl Meringues 

O. Jersey Octopus Ceviche 

P. Easy Pastina Soup 

Q. Shrimp and Quail Egg Garden Salad 

R. Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter 

S. Fresh Scallop Sashimi 

T. Roasted Chicken Thighs with Stuffing 

U. Umeboshi Calamansi Lime Juice

V. Mirabelle Plum Vodka 

W. Welsh Rarebit Potatoes with Cavolo Nero – this post! 

Pin these Welsh Rarebit Potatoes with Cavolo Nero!

 .

Tattie Scones #BreadBakers

A traditional part of a full Scottish breakfast, savory tattie scones are easy to make and even easier to eat, dipped in sunny-side-up egg yolks.

We have very good friends who are from and live in Scotland so we get there to visit as often as we can. Breakfast out at a café means ordering a “full Scottish” which includes not only tattie scones but a slice of black pudding, two eggs, bacon (usually middle bacon, not streaky), a square patty called lorne sausage, grilled tomato and mushroom, baked beans and fried bread or toast.

One of those big plates will set you up for the day, not just the morning! I must confess that sometimes I bring a little baggie in my purse because I cannot eat it all and will save the bacon and/or sausage for later. 

Tattie Scones

This recipe is easily doubled or trebled if you need more tattie scones. Just cook the circles of dough one at a time and if you aren’t frying them again to serve, keep them warm in a slow oven, wrapped in foil. I used one large baking potato for this. If you have smaller ones, try to choose ones that will give you the approximate weight below. Do not peel!

Ingredients

For the dough:

10 1/2 oz or 300g floury potatoes, unpeeled

2 tablespoons or 28g butter

63g plain flour, plus extra to dust

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch fine sea salt 

For optional frying:

2 teaspoons butter

Method

Put the potato in a pan, cover with water, salt generously and bring to the boil. Simmer until cooked through, then drain well on a cutting board. Peel off the skin as soon as you can handle it. Leaving the skin on keeps the potato from being waterlogged which helps make it fluffier.

If you have a potato ricer, push the peeled potato through it then add the butter and stir gently to incorporate the butter as it melts. If not, add the butter and mash with a potato masher. 

Add the flour, salt and baking powder to the potatoes and mix well to form a thick dough. 

It may look like it’s not going to hang together but if you take up a small handful and squeeze it, you’ll see that it will. 

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 in or 5mm thick. You can cut around a plate to shape it into a circle but I hate to waste dough so I just push the sides in a little to make them less uneven. It’s a rustic look but that doesn’t bother me. Don’t let it bother you. 

Dust lightly with flour and prick all over with a fork. I completely forgot the fork pricking so I did it when I had just transferred the tattie scone to the pan. 

Heat the remaining butter in a griddle or large heavy based frying pan over a medium-high heat.  

Fry the dough circle until golden on both sides (about 5-6 minutes). 

Cut into triangles and serve immediately, or cool in a tea towel for later.

Several recipes I found said to let the tattie scones cool then fry them again in more butter for serving. Since I made them one afternoon, I did that the next morning for breakfast with some bacon and eggs. 

I highly recommend doing this. The double frying is worth the time and effort.

Enjoy! 

It’s the second Tuesday of the month so that means it’s time for my Bread Baker friends to share recipes for our chosen theme of scones. Many thanks to our host, Renu of Cook with Renu. Check out the links below. 

• Filled Ginger Scones from A Messy Kitchen
• Fresh Peach Scones from The Wimpy Vegetarian
• Gingerbread Scones from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Irish Scones from Cook with Renu
• Onion Cheese Scones from Sneha's Recipe
• Preserved Lemon Scones from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Tattie Scones from Food Lust People Love

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin these Tattie Scones! 

.

Marmite Butter Mashed Potatoes

These Marmite Butter Mashed Potatoes are a delightful savory dream on a spoon, made with yeast extract, butter, cream and milk. They are the perfect accompaniment to grilled steak or roast chicken. 

Marmite is admittedly a very divisive ingredient. It’s super salty and many people find its yeasty flavor too strong for their tastebuds. I like to think that maybe the naysayers just haven’t tried it spread very, very thinly on well-buttered toast. That was the gateway for me. The Marmite merges with the butter in a lovely way and each bite is a savory treat.

Over the years, I have increased the thickness with which I spread Marmite on toast and I’ve added it into many dishes to increase the umami factor. It is excellent in Bolognese sauce, for instance, or simply stirred through hot buttered pasta. It’s been one of my husband’s favorite things since childhood and I am grateful to him for introducing me to it.

Marmite Butter Mashed Potatoes

Marmite is a yeast extract, manufactured in the United Kingdom. It comes in a glass jar and is very thick and very dark. Some US supermarkets carry it in the international aisle but it can also be purchased online. 

Ingredients

For the Marmite butter: 

3 1/2 oz or 100g unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons Marmite 

Pinch flakey sea salt

For the mashed potatoes:

1 lb 5 oz or 600g potatoes

3 teaspoons fine sea salt

1/4 cup or 60ml milk

1/4 cup or 60ml whipping cream

Method

Mash the butter with the Marmite until completely combined. 

Add in the pinch of flakey sea salt and mix again to combine.

Wrap the Marmite butter up in a roll in a piece of cling film. Chill until needed. 

Peel the potatoes and cut them into chunks. 

Add the chunks immediately to a pot full of cold water so they don’t brown as you get the rest peeled and cut. 

Rinse the potatoes in fresh cold water and fill the pot again so that the potatoes are covered and stir in the salt. 

Bring the water to the boil, then reduce the heat and cook for 10-12 mins until cooked through. Drain the potatoes in a colander.

Tip the milk and cream into the pan and heat them until they are warm. 

Add the potatoes back to the pot and mash with a potato masher.

Then mash in half the Marmite butter.

Stir well until the Marmite butter is thoroughly mixed in.

Serve the mashed potatoes with the remaining Marmite butter on the side, in case anyone would like to add a little more.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and since it’s Father’s Day in many countries around the world, today we are sharing recipes for Dad’s Favorites. Many thanks to our host, Camilla of Culinary Cam. Check out the link list below. 

• Fried Perch by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Marmite Butter Mashed Potatoes by Food Lust People Love
• Milk Chocolate Mug Cake - Microwave by Sneha's Recipe
• Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Roasted Yukon Gold Potato Wedges by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Somehow We Have Landed on Korean for Fathers' Day: Bo Ssäm Recreated by Culinary Cam

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin these Marmite Butter Mashed Potatoes!

 .

Rustic Baked Potato Soup

Better than Panera’s, (and so says my mother-in-law) this rustic baked potato soup starts with actual baked potatoes for more flavor and texture. It’s creamy and more-ish! 

My wonderful mother-in-law doesn’t cook much for herself anymore, especially now after recovering from two successive broken legs (first the left, then when that healed, the right!) and two and a half months in rehab. So we’ve been cooking and bringing her meals to reheat as she needs them. 

Occasionally she asks me to run to the nearby Panera to pick her favorite rustic baked potato soup. It’s not a big serving still costs $7.99 but, hey, she needs the calories and nutrition so I would never object. But then it occurred to me that I could probably make a copy cat version MUCH cheaper. The great news is she likes mine better! Win-win.

Rustic Baked Potato Soup

The Panera Bread soup upon which this is modeled offers two options for topping, extra (or less) Asiago cheese and the addition of bacon for an extra charge. I’ve never added the bacon when ordering for my mother-in-law so I won’t do it here but feel free you want some! We aren't peeling these potatoes so choose a variety with thin skins like white or golden potatoes. If you must use russets, you might want to peel them. It won’t be the same though. 

Ingredients

2 lbs or 900g white or golden potatoes

Olive oil

4 cups or 960ml chicken stock

2 tablespoons butter

1 white onion

2 cloves garlic

4 oz or 113g cream cheese

1 green onion, green part only, sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt, if necessary (some chicken stock is pretty salty and that’s enough salt)

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To garnish: Asiago cheese, grated  

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and line a pan with silicone mat or foil for easy clean up.

Scrub the potatoes clean and cut them in half lengthwise. Oil the silicone mat or foil with a good drizzle of olive oil then place the potatoes cut side down. Use a basting brush to oil the tops of the potatoes. 

Roast in your preheated oven for 15 minutes. Turn the potatoes cut side up and roast for another 15 minutes. 

While the potatoes are roasting, peel and chop your garlic and onion. 

Remove the potatoes from the oven and leave to cool. 

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is translucent. I cover my pot because I find it helps soften the onion more quickly. 

Chop the potatoes into chunks. 

Add the potatoes and chicken stock to the pot. 

Bring to a boil then simmer for about 12 to 15 minutes by which time the potatoes should start to break down, if they haven’t already. 

Use a potato masher to mash some of the potatoes. 

Give the soup a good stir. If you like a thicker soup, mash more! The Panera soup does have some potato chunks so I tried to match that texture. 

Add the cream cheese and the sliced green onion and stir until the cheese has melted. Add the salt, if needed, and black pepper.

Serve garnished with shredded Asiago cheese.

Enjoy!

It’s Sunday FunDay and we are celebrating moms ahead of Mother’s Day in the United States next weekend, sharing recipes in honor of the great women in our lives. Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out the links below. 

• Edible Gelatin Balloons for Cake Decorating from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Guava Cheese from Sneha's Recipe
• Haldi Doodh Masala Spiced Cupcakes with Burnt Caramel Buttercream from Culinary Cam
• Honey Mustard Chicken Strips from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Pistachio Saffron Muffins from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Rustic Baked Potato Soup from Food Lust People Love
• Shortbread Lemon Squares from Our Good Life

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin this Rustic Baked Potato Soup! 

.