Nigel Slater's fast food

For 2

450g new potatoes
3 tbsps olive oil
6 plump cloves of garlic
3 sage leaves, torn into shreds
75g pancetta, diced

Six cloves of garlic to a pound of tiny potatoes sounds excessive. It isn't. Slowly pan-fried, the garlic takes on a soft, sweet richness. Use bacon if pancetta eludes you. Veggies can leave it out altogether.

Wipe the new potatoes and cut them in half.

Pour the olive oil into a sauté pan and place over a moderate heat. When it is quite hot add the potato halves, the garlic, sage and the pancetta. Fry until the bacon fat and the potatoes are light gold in colour, then season with salt and pepper, and cook over a low to medium heat for 20 minutes or so. The dish is ready when the potatoes are golden brown and buttery and the garlic is soft within. Each diner should split the skin of the garlic cloves and scrape out the creamy flesh, spreading a dab on each potato as they eat.

For 2, with the accompaniments below

450g waxy potatoes
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsps olive oil
50g butter
100g semi-soft or easy-melting cheese, such as Gruyère, Port-Salut, Camembert, Taleggio or, for authenticity, Reblochon

I have been cooking potatoes in olive oil and then topping them with cheese for years. It is one of the simplest and most delicious suppers I can think of. I have used Italian Taleggio, French Cantal and Swiss Gruyère, and even goat's cheese on one occasion, to melt over the tender potatoes. What I did not know until recently is that it is a traditional French recipe, from Normandy. It was Thane Prince who put me straight, in her column in the Telegraph, when she published a version of this dish which she had found on a trip to Normandy, where they use Reblochon - a creamy local cheese.

Scrub the potatoes and slice them thinly, no thicker than pound coins. Peel and slice the garlic and cook it slowly, in a large sauté pan, in the olive oil and butter till fragrant and pale gold.

Lay the potatoes in the pan, cover with a lid and cook over a low heat for 20 minutes till you can push a sharp knife through the layers with little resistance. They should be quite soft and buttery.

Slice the cheese and lay on top of the potatoes. Cover and cook again for a couple of minutes till the cheese has just started to melt. Eat immediately. When served with sliced charcuterie, gherkins, olives and bread, this is one thing I would rather eat than almost anything else.

Walnut oil and new potato sautè

Patricia Wells is the restaurant critic for L'Express, the French news weekly. She once told me of a dish in her book Bistro Cooking, where she cooked sliced potatoes in walnut oil. I tried and enjoyed her recipe and have since found it works well with new potatoes, which avoids the peeling and slicing involved with larger potatoes. Her book, a collection of recipes from the chic bistros in Paris, has since become something of a good friend.

For 4 as an accompaniment

75ml walnut oil
4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled, crushed flat
450g new potatoes wiped clean
salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsps chopped fresh parsley

Warm the oil with the crushed garlic cloves in a shallow pan until it is hot, but not smoking. Add the potatoes and sautè them over a gentle medium heat for about 15-20 minutes. Shake the pan from time to time. They are cooked when brown on all sides and tender to the point of a knife.

Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the parsley over as you toss them from the pan into a serving dish.

I have often made supper by tipping the hot potatoes out on to a plate of mixed salad leaves. The sort you buy in a bag from the supermarket, called Salade Mesclun in posh shops and French markets. Bread, thin and crisp-crusted baguettes, is good here too.

New potatoes, thyme, garlic and cream

Put 450g new potatoes on to boil. Meanwhile, crush 3 or 4 sprigs of fresh thyme in your hand, just enough to bruise the leaves, and drop them into 175ml double cream in a small, shallow pan. Add 3 plump cloves of garlic, flattened but not peeled, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 7-12 minutes, until reduced by one-third. The potatoes should be cooked by now. Drain them, break each one in half and drop into the scented cream. Serve with something grilled, like a red mullet or a chop.

Cheese Mash

For 2

New potatoes will cook to buttery tenderness in boiling salted water in 12-20 minutes depending on their size and variety. I cook them whole so that they don't become waterlogged. Whole ones will bake or roast in 20-25 minutes. I usually halve or quarter them if they are very big, so that they cook more quickly and, more importantly, their cut sides roast to a succulent pale gold. Only a fool would peel them.

Boil 450g new potatoes in boiling salted water till tender. Drain. Put them on a plate. Mash with a fork, skins and all. Smother with butter. And grated Gruyère or Cheddar cheese. And freshly ground pepper. Scatter rocket leaves on top. Or basil. Eat while hot, helping the cheese to melt by pushing it into the hot buttery potato with your fork.