Pan Haggerty

Serves 4

"This dish seems to appear in different guises all over the world, like pommes Anna and the various French potato gratins and Welsh onion cake. I've even had a similar dish in Spain that was thinner, so it was pizza-like, and topped with bacon and herbs. When you have simple ingredients like potatoes and onions, you need to be creative. An ovenproof frying pan is useful here, otherwise use a non-stick pan and transfer the potato cake to a baking tray to finish cooking in the oven."

"This dish seems to appear in different guises all over the world, like pommes Anna and the various French potato gratins and Welsh onion cake. I've even had a similar dish in Spain that was thinner, so it was pizza-like, and topped with bacon and herbs. When you have simple ingredients like potatoes and onions, you need to be creative. An ovenproof frying pan is useful here, otherwise use a non-stick pan and transfer the potato cake to a baking tray to finish cooking in the oven."

500g (1lb 2oz) large potatoes
40g (1 ^1/2oz) butter
250g (9oz) onions, peeled and thinly sliced
75g (3oz) beef dripping
125g (4oz) mature Cheddar cheese, grated
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 190C, gas mark 5. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes on a mandolin, or the slicer on the side of a cheese grater. Melt the butter in a pan and gently cook the onions over a medium heat for about 10 minutes until they soften.

Heat half of the dripping in a heavy-based frying pan (preferably ovenproof and ideally non-stick). Remove from the heat and arrange a layer of the sliced potatoes in the pan, then build up layers of onions, cheese and potatoes, seasoning them and finishing with potatoes. Return the pan to a medium heat and fry until the bottom layer begins to colour. Put the rest of the dripping on top of the potatoes then put the pan into the oven. (If your frying pan isn't ovenproof, then slide the potato "cake'' on to a baking tray.)

Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown, increasing the temperature to 220C, gas mark 7, for the last 10 minutes to brown the top. Loosen the sides of the cake with a palette knife and carefully invert on to a warm plate to serve.