Small potatoes

It is hard out there for a potato. On one hand, we want the potato to be virtuous, that staff of life that is nearly a complete diet in itself. (I seem to recall an argument somewhere, possibly in one John Thorn's books, that it was the potato's comprehensive virtue as a foodstuff that led to the dangerous monocultural diet that led to famine of 1847.) On the other hand, we want the potato to be greasy and salty, exuding whatever it is that has us digging in the bag for one more fry as we change lanes without signaling and dial our hydrotherapist on the hands-free cell. (LA, here we come!)

For home chefs, one of the common attempts to bridge this gap is the oven fry. In its effort to bridge the virtuous and the salacious, it fails to deliver on either count, existing generally in some sort of Cindy Margolian* purgatory between virtue and vice. The denizens of Achewood are aware of this problem, and the Achewood cookbook actually has the only viable oven fry receipt I've ever seen. It is a little bit fussy, though, involving temperature changes, flipping potatoes and such.

An easier, albeit more expensive solution has been in heavy rotation at the GCTC lately. It's not even a receipt, just something you do. Preheat your broiler to 450 or so Rinse a bag of fingerling potatoes. (I told you this was a dish for high rollers.) Cut them in half the long way. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. You could add some rosemary or thyme here. Place cut side down on a cookie sheet that you have oiled. If you don't mind getting a little abstract expressionist, I find the best approach is to pour a slug in the center of the sheet, and push it to the corners with your hand. Let them cook, 20 minutes or so, until the cut side is golden brown. Turn out into a container that gives them some room to breathe, and salt and pepper to taste. The Slobra, who was passing through town, opined that they are "potato crack." The only tricky thing is that they hold up about as well as Len, so you want to have the rest of your meal ready when these are ready.  On the nutritional virtue scale, these probably fall short of the baked in the ashes of the peat fire you tend while you read Maria Edgeworth to your blind grandmother, but ain't no clown trying to get your kids to eat them, neither.

*Pre-2006.

Comments

[Rose's Lime]

After trying a once cooked technique with mixed results too many times, I've settled on twice cooked...

Cut your ordinary potatoes into wedges the size of half fingerlings. Dump into boiling water and simmer for 5-10 minutes till they're tender, but not falling apart.

Toss on a baking sheet with olive oil, salt and herbs. Alternatively, if you're serving with a roast chicken as we do, start the chicken 1/2 hour before, scoop some of the schmaltz out of the roasting pan and toss potatoes with that.

Place in oven for about 40 minutes at 350 - usually on the rack below where the chicken is cooking - remove the chicken in 1/2 hour and let rest. Remove potatoes and throw them on the table blistering hot. You don't get any potatoes till you eat your chicken and your green beans anyway.

[Skeen]

I'm not totally sure what an oven fry is supposed to be, or why one would want one, if one could have roast potatoes instead (for which almost any potato, any recipe is foolproof as long as you roast them long enough).
And yes the Irish with their potatoes and buttermilk were better nourished than their counterparts in other European countries at the time. And potatoes were easy for poor people to grow. And the population grew. But the problem was not so much "monoculture" since Ireland raised a variety of crops. The Irish famine, like all modern famines, was a problem of food distribution and bad government policy. During every year of the famine (1845-49) Ireland exported shiploads of wheat, beef, vegetables, butter. As many people died from disease (maybe more?) as from famine. More emigrated.

Okay, sorry -- end of history lesson...

[Fesser]

Fair enough. I was about halfway through Mike Davis' "Late Victorian Holocausts" which makes the point that famine is not a natural phenomenon, and then 9/11 happened, and I did not have the heart to keep reading. I did not mean to suggest that the 47 was some sort of judgment on the Irish for poor agricultural practices.

[Skeen]

Aww, I wouldn't take you for the kind of 'fesser who would judge the Irish. I was thinking that the Irish famine, "Jungle"-like, often gets read as a story about immediate causes (drat, those potatoes!), rather than systemic ones (laissez-faire capitalist and imperialist bastards!). Though of course one can go overboard in the latter direction ("genocide," anyone?)