Come see HOW TO GROW JERSEY ROYAL POTATOES in Jersey, UK!
In this series, we will explore How Food Is Made by visiting farms, factories and more to see how our food is made, and what it goes through before hitting supermarket shelves. After visiting where our food is made, we head back into my kitchen where we will create a delicious recipe together using the food we have seen being made.
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Timings
00:00 - Intro
00:07 - Part 1: How To Grow Jersey Royal Potatoes
00:16 - What is PDO? And whose farm?
00:35 - October: Seed potatoes
01:02 - January: Prepping the field and planting
01:28 - February: Removing the polythene cover
01:51 - April: Harvesting the potatoes
02:36 - Sorting & packaging
03:22 - Distribution
03:41 - Visiting the Jersey cows
04:05 - Part 2: In The Kitchen
04:08 - Explanation and how to prepare Jersey Royal potatoes for cooking
04:30 - Making the recipe: Jersey Royal Caesar Salad
04:38 - Making the dressing
05:01 - Cooking the potatoes
05:59 - Serving the potato salad
06:50 - Tasting the potato salad
07:10 - Outro
HOW TO GROW JERSEY ROYAL POTATOES
Just like Champagne, Jersey Royal potatoes are a protected designation of origin or PDO meaning, you can only get these potatoes from Jersey. So I’m here in Jersey meeting with Phil, a 7th generation Jersey Royal farmer to see the care and attention that goes into growing these delicious little seasonal potatoes.
We are starting at one of the potato packaging buildings, which is also where we can see the seed potatoes. These seed potatoes are the start of the cycle of cultivating Jersey Royal potatoes. The seed potatoes are organised by size and sorted into wooden boxes called “chitting trays”. The chitting trays encourage a dominant shoot to form which will result in an early harvest the following spring. This typically happens around October.
A few months later, in January, the field which would usually be in grass cover crop gets cut back and mulched in. Then the field is ploughed, fertilised, cultivated and worked down. The Jersey Royal potatoes are hand planted and then the field is covered with polythene to protect the potatoes from cold weather. The plastic used is recycled and reused.
As we move into February, the polythene gets removed. This is about 6 weeks after it is placed over the potatoes. The field is then reworked, which means that the field is re-ridged and the ground is freshened up to reduce the chance of green potatoes forming.
Roughly 12 weeks later, in April, the potatoes are ready for harvesting! This is all done by hand, as you can see, and the potatoes are checked as they are harvested.
Once the potatoes get harvested, they are placed into bags and then brought to their sorting and packaging facility nearby. The way that they harvest the potatoes is by shaking the plant from the leaves. This allows the potatoes to gently fall off the plant to be collected.
At the sorting facility, they are taken into the sorting machine which sorts them by size. Once they are organised by size, they go into their Jersey Royal bags and are weighed, sealed and then shipped off to be sold in supermarkets, farm shops or even little stalls like the Master’s Farm one that I’m popping into now to pick some up to take home and cook with.
And yes, I flew home from Jersey with my Jersey Royal potatoes so now that I’ve got them home, let’s get cooking. You’re going to love this recipe!
IN THE KITCHEN
We are back in London, in my kitchen and ready to use the Jersey Royal potatoes in a recipe. I’m using my easy Caesar dressing recipe, but adding in the cooked Jersey Royal potatoes, crispy pancetta and homemade croutons using the pancetta oil to bake.
Head to my Instagram to view the full recipe and method.
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Thanks for watching!
Music from Epidemic Sounds. Credits to Masters Farm in Jersey for making this video possible. Created, filmed, edited, voiced-over and produced by Gemma Sokol (@gemtakesfoodpics).
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