Yukon Gold Hash Brown Potatoes!

Yesterday was rainy and gross. What was supposed to be a weekend at the beach became steak night. Not much to say about steak: other than its a lot harder to do in an apartment in Manhattan than a grill on Fire Island. Maybe next time I'll talk about oven grilling steaks in an apartment without the need to call the Fire Department. But for now, for my faux Luger's evening, I wanted to talk about my potatoes. You can make these too: all it takes is a cast iron pan and an oven. I particularly like Yukon Gold Potatoes, but any "new" potato will work. Heck, even Idaho style potatoes will work although they are a bit starchy for my taste.

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Cast iron skillet and aluminum foil to cover it.
oven and stove top

INGREDIENTS

3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, cut intro 1/2 inch pieces with skins on
one large onion, diced
teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
3 tablespoon of olive oil (don't skimp as this dish is not healthy no matter what you do). An extra tablespoon is a good idea to have around

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Place the potatoes in a pan and start cooking while you prepare the onions. Brown the onion on the stove top in half the oil. Part of the way through, add the garlic. Add the rest of the oil, and the potatoes. Stir around, all on medium high heat. Cover the pan with tinfoil and transfer to the oven. Cook for about 30 minutes and then uncover and stir around again. Test one piece of potato for doneness. You can add another tablespoon of oil at this time, too (yes, i know, thats 4 tablespoons). When brown and soft, the potatoes are ready. Serve immediately.

Are Tyrrells Potato Chips Worth It?

In the past year, I have been seeing a lot more of Tyrells, a potato chip (crisp) brand from England, in gourmet stores. Given the lousy state of the dollar and the cost of transporting bulky bags across the ocean, Tyrells is not cheap, costing $3.89 at Zabar's. The cost on Fire Island is not even publishable in a family blog because, upon hearing it, most adults just go "holy .....t!"

Having said that, the real question is whether its worth it to plunk down all that money for those chips in the first place. After all, its still less than $4.00 a bag. Chips aren't that good for you, so you should eat them sparingly anyway. And, if you were to look them up at the British equivalent of "Fresh Direct," they cost over $3.00 a bag at current exchange rates even in the UK.

The answer is complicated. The regular chips are, despite my wish that they weren't, rather good. They are thick, crisp, and some of their flavors, such as their sea salt and vinegar, are also quite tasty. They have a large collection of odd flavors, such as thai-curry, which just make them different from the other chips. While I have never seen their "asparagus" flavored chips here in the States, I don't imagine there is a US company producing this flavor, should you want it. The chips clearly taste better than the national brands. They are similar in flavor to some of the other "kettle cooked" chips, including Terra brand and Cape Cod.

So, to Tyrell or not to Tyrell. If you love chips, but try to avoid eating them, its probably worth an occasional splurge. But for the big chip eater, or for a large party, not enough people will notice the difference and it would be better to spend all that extra money on good dip.

Roasted on the Grill Potatoes and Mushrooms

When I first started making this dish I received questions from the assembled mass of adults. If we were eating with the kids, they asked, how could we make a potato dish with mushrooms. Their tender little taste buds wouldn't allow it, I was told. My first reaction was that the children should learn to like mushrooms or suffer. Even I realized very quickly that this wasn't a great, or realistic, solution. So I thought about how I could make everyone happy. The recipe that follows is the result of this thinking.

Before working on making both kids and adults happy, I wanted to briefly talk about roasting vegetables in a pan on a grill. The basic principal here is that your grill can double as an oven and it is possible to roast vegetables while you grill meat. The most important thing to remember when doing this is that vegetables often take much longer to cook than meat: start them early!!!

INGREDIENTS

New Potatoes, 2 pounds, cut into 1/4" slices with the skin on
Whole mushrooms, cleaned
Tablespoon of fresh chopped garlic (I use a mini-prep)
Tablespoon of salt
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of thyme

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Grill with adjustable heating zones and cover
9 x 12 roasting pan (or something like it)
Aluminum foil

INSTRUCTIONS
Liberally coat the pan in oil. Add the potato slices and mushroom. Add the garlic, salt and thyme and mix around. Add still more oil and allow everything to get a bit coated. Cover with aluminum foil. While you should try to cover it reasonably tightly it will be important to remove and recover the dish so you can turn it while it cooks.

Preheat a grill such that the grill is as hot as it can get while still only being on low heat directly over the area where the vegetables will go (I have a Weber and keep the back two burners on low and the front on high).

Place the pan on the grill and cover the grill. The frill should be at least 450 degrees. Ignore for at least 10 minutes. After this, occasionally (every five minutes or so) open the grill, uncover the dish, and turn potatoes and mushrooms so they don't burn. Try to keep the potatoes on the bottom of the dish after turning so they brown somewhat. It takes about 40 minutes to cook the dish. It would take less time if you never opened the grill, but I was cooking meat during this time, and you probably will, too. Its ready when the potatoes are a bit brown and soft.

If you have children who don't like mushrooms, it is easy to separate the two vegetables. We did (see photo). They ate the potatoes. We ate both. Problem solved.

Multicolored Roast Potatoes

After the crushing complexity of paella and the guilty pleasure of sliders I decided to write today about an old favorite of mine: roast multicolored potatoes. I remember the first time I saw colored potatoes: the lovely wife and I used to have a box of organic fruits and vegetables delivered to us from a coop in Brooklyn when we lived on the East Side many years ago. Although most of the time they seemed to deliver nothing but Swiss Chard, every now and then we would get some potatoes. Although they were usually of the red "boiler" type, one time we got a bag of dark potatoes with a photocopied insert extolling the blueness of the potatoes and also how the blue color was an antioxidant. Although I'm not sure I buy that part it is totally true that the potatoes have blue or purple flesh. They are also known as Peruvian potatoes.

Blue and red fleshed potatoes have become more common over the years. And, although I think the color is great, blue potatoes are a bit starchy for my tastes, and easy to overcook into hardened blue lumps. For this reason, I like to roast them with red skinned and white skinned boiling potatoes. Luckily, Westside Market is now selling a bag of potatoes containing all three types!!! I bought one tonight and proceeded to make the following recipe. Its easy, tasty, and easily serves 6 or more people as a side dish.

INGREDIENTS

One bag of red,white and blue potatoes, all one to two inches in diameter, washed (must have been a bit over 1 1/2 pounds)
Olive Oil
1 tablespoon of one of the following: thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary
Liberal amount of salt

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Heavy pan that can easily hold all of the potaotes and cover (I used tin foil, its a fine cover)

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash potatoes and dry them. Place oil at bottom of pan (enough to coat the potatoes) and heat on stove. Add potatoes, spices and salt and mix together so that the potatoes are covered. Keep on flame about five minutes, turning when you remember too. Cover pan and place in oven. It usually takes about 40 minutes to cook potatoes. They are done when they are soft and you can easily stick a skewer in a larger one. If you want, you can put the oven up to 500 degrees and uncover the potatoes for a few minutes at the end to brown them up a bit. Serve with meat for a complete experience.

Hanukah Latkes

I know you're all shocked that a doctor on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is Jewish, but its true. While I am not a fan of many Eastern European dishes (which seem to have been created out of poverty and a lack of any food besides beets, turnips, onions and organ bits) I love latkes. OK, this is not totally true. I love the concept of latkes; plump, tasty, mildly greasy potato pancakes. The reality is most latkes taste like mashed potatoes and grease mixed with rosin, or worse. But not mine. Mine are flavorful, crunchy on the outside and pleasantly soft on the inside. They are an ample platform for apple sauce, sour cream and assorted other condiments. Hip Hop Artists rap about them. OK, maybe not that last item, but they are good.

INGREDIENTS

5 Idaho potatoes (big, starchy potatoes are good)
3 medium sized yellow onions
teaspoon + of salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
olive and canola oils
4 eggs
5 tablespoons flour

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Biggest pan you own or can borrow to fry potatoes
Food processor with grating blade and slicing blade
Big bowl
Paper towels and plates
Thermometer helps
Peeler

INSTRUCTIONS

Peel the potatoes and peel the onions. Cut the potatoes into pieces that will fit in the hopper of your food processor (the larger the better) and run through using the “grater” blade. Place in large bowl.
Peel the onions and run through with the slicer blade of food processor. Chop up further with knife to dice fully. Saute until soft and not quite golden brown in olive oil mixed with a bit of canola oil. Add to potatoes.
Mix together the salt, pepper eggs and flour. Add this mix to the potatoes and onions and mix the whole thing together.
Heat the largest fry pan you have with a mixture of 50/50 olive and canola oil. Oil should be quite hot but not smoking. The oil should be at least ¼ “ deep. The mixture will be mildly liquidy from potato juice by the time you are ready. Make patties with your hand, which should be about ½” thick or maybe a bit more and about 4” across. If you can, you can place them in the oil by hand. I find it is easier to put it in “pizza style” on a spatula and sliding it in. DO NOT FLIP UNTIL QUITE BROWN AT THE EDGES!!! Otherwise, the pancakes will be greasy. Fry until golden brown on both sides. It takes longer than you think it will so be patient.