Patatas bravas with chorizo

Last night I made the patatas bravas with chorizo from the May 2010 issue of the Good food magazine.  According to the recipe it serves 6 as an appetiser, but I made it for dinner instead, adjusting the volume of ingredients so that I made enough for two adults, one child and a baby.

The recipe was easy to follow and make, but I had to steam the potatoes for longer than the suggested 10 minutes as they were still rock hard after the 10 minutes had passed.  Next time I will cut the potatoes smaller in the hope that they steam quicker.  Another thing that I will change for next time is the type of potatoes that I use.  We had roosters in the house, so I used these but they were too floury and feel apart in the pan a bit.  I think that waxy potatoes might have held together a bit better.

To save time when I make this recipe in the future I will probably steam the potatoes the day before and keep them in the fridge until I am ready to use them.

For the baby I mashed some of the potatoes and stirred in some of the tomato sauce and onion.  He loved it.

Alterations
Instead of using 250g of small cooking chorizo I used three large cooking chorizo from Marks and Spencers and cut them into chunks.  I substituted the red chilli in the recipe for some dried crushed chillis instead and as there was no cayenne pepper in the house I didn't add it to the dish.  As the recipe was only for two adults and one child I used less potatoes than the suggested 1kg.

Cost
The chorizo sausages that I used cost €1.25.  I have estimated that the potatoes I used were €1.50, the onion was 20 cent, the can of chopped tomatoes was 67 cent and I have allowed 30 cent for the garlic, olive oil and spices.  That makes the total cost €3.92 which is quite reasonable for dinner for the family.

If I used potatoes from the garden the cost of the meal would be reduced further, making it an even cheaper recipe to make.