Ottolenghi Inpired Yukon Gold Potatoes

January 4, 2016

20160104-065643.jpg I become more and more of a fan of London based chef & cookbook author, Yotam Ottolenghi. We sell the heck out of his wildly successful books, with folks raving to me things they have tried from his recipes. The above potatoes inspired by Ottolenghi. Ordinary potatoes that become visually appealing and even tastier due to a few tweaks. I made them the other evening with filet mignon for New Year’s Eve dinner, the below a week ago for a simple week-night supper. These can be dressed up or casual, which I always love. I think they would be awesome as an appetizer too, served with green goddess dip. Here is what I did for an easy chicken breast meal during the week to spiff it up a bit.

Yukon gold potatoes are the way to go for this. Choose medium to smaller sized, trying to pick ones that are of a similar size. Oven to 400, my cooking sweet spot. Using a sharp knife for this, cut a little piece of the spud off the bottom, so the potato sits flat in the baking process. Next, slice up the potato being careful not to cut all the way to the bottom as you want the entire thing to stay intact. Do this with all the potatoes. Then lightly pour extra virgin olive oil over them all, that are sitting on a baking sheet ready for the oven. With your hands massage the oil over the entire potato so it is covered entirely with extra virgin olive oil, including the flat bottom so it does not stick and burn. Add pinches of salt & pepper over all. OK, here is where I added a bit of extra flavor, which you don’t have to do if you are cooking these without anything else. At the half hour point, I ladled over with a spoon some of the juices that had collected from the roasting chicken breasts that were right next to the potatoes. This reminds me so much of the potatoes placed under rotisserie chickens in Paris that cook in the drippings as the chickens rotate away. Those juices mixed with the EVOO are kind of magical stuff and it really helped to brown the potatoes and add a bit of extra flavor. When I cooked them solo, I added a teeny tiny bit of butter at the 30 minute mark. The butter melting down into the slits and adding more tastiness and helping them to brown. You can pass on this too, just ladle any extra oil that is on the pan at the half hour mark to give them a little extra brown. By minute 45, these little gems should be ready. Timing depends on the potato size, so check along the way by giving one a little squeeze to see if it is soft, which means it is done. They just look so cool and taste amazing.

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P.S. I am experiencing some technical difficulties with my WordPress app on my phone when I am writing my blog post each morning. Typically I am able to go back and make edits after it posts. But when I have done it this week, it is posting to the next day. So I am not able to make edits without messing up the post. Please forgive any typos, which I generally catch after I read it after it is up on my site, but currently am not able to go back and change. Anywho, boring technical stuff. Have a glorious Monday/week and have fun making the potatoes if they make it into your repertoire.