Savoury potato crumble with ham and melting cheese
A savoury crumble made with grated boiled potatoes, flour and cold butter, filled with cooked ham and melting cheese and baked until deeply golden.
Are you looking for a savoury tart that is a little different, with no puff pastry and no dough to roll out?
Then this savoury potato crumble is for you. I will walk you through turning cold boiled potatoes, flour and butter into a crumbly mixture that bakes into a crisp golden crust, with cooked ham and melting cheese in the middle.
The mechanism is the one behind a sweet crumble, applied to a savoury filling: no rolling, no pin, you simply rub the mixture between your fingers and scatter it into the tin. Two temperatures make the difference. The potatoes must be cold or they mash instead of grating, and the butter must be very cold or the crumbs clump and the surface never crisps.
There are at least three good reasons to make it: very simple ingredients, no particular technique, and a genuinely filling one-dish meal, especially with a salad alongside.
The filling is the part you can change freely. Cooked ham and provola is the most classic version, but speck and fontina work beautifully, as does a vegetarian filling of grilled courgettes, squeezed dry, with scamorza.
Serve it warm, when the cheese still stretches but the portions come away whole. The next day, five minutes in the oven brings the crust back.
Ready? Let’s get started with the savoury potato crumble.
Steps
- Boil the potatoes whole in their skins for about 30 minutes, drain and let them cool completely, ideally an hour in the fridge: cold they grate, hot they turn to purée.
- Peel them and grate them on the coarse side of a grater straight into a large bowl.
- Add the flour, the parmesan, the thyme leaves, salt and pepper, and mix quickly with your hands.
- Add the cold diced butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until you have coarse crumbs. It must not come together as a dough: the irregular crumbs are exactly what creates the crisp crust.
- Spread half the crumbs over the base of a lined tin, pressing lightly to form a base.
- Cover with the slices of cooked ham and the sliced melting cheese, leaving a couple of centimetres free around the edge.
- Scatter the remaining crumbs on top without pressing them down and bake at 190°C (375°F) in a conventional oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until deep golden. Rest for 10 minutes before cutting.
Helpful tips
The potatoes must be cold: it is the only way to grate them and get crumbs instead of mash.
Use the butter straight from the fridge and work fast, as for a savoury shortcrust: if it warms up, the crumbs clump together.
Swap the ham for speck, sautéed mushrooms or well-squeezed grilled courgettes.
Make it ahead and reheat in the oven: the crust crisps up again in five minutes.
Average nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 420 kcal
- Carbohydrates
- 38.0 g
- Sugars
- 3.0 g
- Protein
- 18.0 g
- Fat
- 22.0 g
- Saturated fat
- 12.0 g
- Fiber
- 3.0 g
- Sodium
- 700 mg
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