Honestly, these are the easiest things ever – a really flexible recipe, and great for leftover boiled potatoes. My Irish grandmother made a batch of these almost every day.

You need three parts cooked potato, two parts flour, and one part butter/marg/vegan spread of choice – I usually work on 150g of spud, but if it goes over a bit, no matter, just scale up the other ingredients. You will need a dribble of milk. Add half a teaspoon of salt. Add some grated cheese if you want. Add some herbs. Whatever.

Mix up the ingredients. You could do it by hand or with a potato masher. You can do it in a food processor. You can, as I did this morning, use a stand food mixer. Then add a little, and I mean a little, milk. We’re talking a couple of teaspoons here to start – can’t be precise because every variety of potato is different, but be very gentle with the milk adding, cos you can’t take it out. Knead the mix a bit.

Next up – you can roll it with a rolling pin, should you feel inclined. Or you can just flatten it with your hand. We’re not talking haute cuisine here, You want it to be about a centimetre deep. I generally shape mine into a round and cut it into six wedges, but feel free to cut it into rounds if that’s the way you rock.

Now, cooking. The best way is a cast iron griddle pan, hot. If you get it right, you can wash up the starchy mess left by the making of them. Just let them brown on one side, then flip ’em over and do the other side. Or you can do them in the oven – about 15 minutes at 190c should do it, but they’re nicer griddled.

Eat hot with lashings of butter. We had some for breakfast with leftover stuffing, pigs in blankets and little sausages.