Fifteen Ways to Eat Potatoes

They're staring at me. It's been like this for weeks. I've tried to ignore them, but it's become impossible.

The eyes of a potato come out to get you. They send out tendrils, prehensile shoots. If you wait too long, who knows what they might do.

It's not just thrift, in other words, that has directed my attention toward the unused potatoes beneath the counter. It's self-protection.

The two-for-one bagged potato sale at the supermarket those weeks ago seemed innocent enough at the time. Surely it would be possible to consume two five-pound bags just as promptly as one. But the real course of events have responded with a resounding and definitive no.

The weeks have passed, and the potatoes have grown restless. This is entirely my fault: I've long considered them as little more than the raw materials for an occasional side-dish. The frites to accompany a bistro steak. The accoutrement of a pot roast, or a pot-au-feu, or a New England boiled dinner. I've dismissed the potato as a mere filler, a sideshow performance. But my prejudice has come to light now that there's nothing at center stage: we don't eat pots-au-feu every day. In fact, we haven't eaten this way for weeks.

So I've resolved to broaden my approach to potato cookery. Over the past few days, we've reprised some of our favorite potato dishes, and we've now worked through the first five-pound bag. But another remains. The problem is that most cookbooks share my former prejudice in relegating potatoes to the margins of dinner: fried, mashed, roasted, sautéed, or boiled, they remain at once naked and supplemental.

As a first step, here are fifteen simple dishes-- indeed, they're far from fancy-- that feature potatoes centrally rather than peripherally.

1. Latkes
One of the simplest and most satisfying recipes comes from H.'s mother. Grate up a couple of potatoes along with an onion. Beat in an egg, and add enough flour to absorb any excess liquid. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in hot vegetable oil until crisp on the outside and fully cooked on the inside. Serve with applesauce.

2. Home fries with eggs
Though H. and I both prefer corned beef hash, this is goodly fare, if profoundly lazy. I've yet to develop a satisfactory home fry recipe, although mashing, rather than simply chopping, the boiled potatoes is a useful start.

3. Potato-tomato galette
This one comes from Louise Pickford's Book of Vegetarian Cooking. Though preferable in late summer when tomatoes are in season, this is still pleasant with many of the better cultivated tomatoes-- whether grape tomatoes or the fancier "Campari" variety. This recipe involves slicing the potatoes with a mandoline, which is always amusing. In a greased (and ideally non-stick) cake pan, arrange a layer of potato slices in concentric rings to cover the bottom of the pan. Brush with melted butter, add a second layer of potato slices, and brush again. Cover with foil and bake in a 450° oven for 30 minutes, until golden.
Arrange a layer of thinly sliced tomatoes over the potatoes, season with salt, pepper, and olive oil, and heat under the broiler until the tomatoes are bubbling. Garnish with basil or, alternatively, add fresh rosemary during any part of the cooking process.

4. Curried potatoes with chick peas
I cheat on this one. I've been using a store-bought jar of hot curry paste, which I supplement with various other spices: cumin seeds, black onion seeds, coriander. This is the dish we had tonight. Melt some ghee in a large saucepan, and sautée some chopped onion along with the spices (cumin seeds, onion seeds, coriander). When the onion is translucent and the spices are fragrant, add several diced potatoes and sautée for about five minutes. Then add the spice paste, along with a large can of diced tomatoes and about a cup of water. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes. Rinse and drain a can of chick peas, and add them to the pot. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender and flavorful, about 10-15 minutes longer. Serve with basamati rice.

5. Baked potatoes with lime-chipotle butter
Nothing much to explain here-- though tasty, it's a bit limited. It's a little less depressing, however, if you serve it with refried beans on the side, along with a fresh salsa. But this is really more of a side dish; it would go nicely with a summer barbecue.

6. Pommes Dauphine
Fried mashed potato balls. Yes, this is really another side dish. But they're so delicious that you could really just serve them with a little bit of salad, and be perfectly content.

7. Potato soup
There are two versions of a basic potato soup: one is to make clam chowder without the clams-- a creamier soup with a fish, clam, chicken, or vegetable stock. The second is more of a purée, with the same principle as virtually any other basic vegetable soup: sautée some onions (along with celery, if preferred), add some diced potatoes and six cups of stock, and simmer until you get bored.

8. Gratin Dauphinois (in theory)
This one's really just here for the sake of fantasy, since H. doesn't eat cheese. But ah. I could eat a whole tray.

9. Warm potato salad with bacon
This is the recipe from the Silver Palate Cookbook. I won't bother to repeat it. It's magnificent.

10. Salade paysanne
Café salads are always a lot of fun, since it's like having a picnic on a bed of lettuce. Fried diced potatoes pair nicely with lardons or bacon, beets, and poached eggs on a bed of frisée, or even on crisp romaine. Add some sautéed gizzards and you've got yourself a mighty feast.

11. Gnocci
By far the simplest ingredient list: a boiled potato and some flour in equal parts. A dumpling made to absorb your favorite sauce. Is there any leftover tomato sauce in the freezer? Any of that summer pesto stashed away somewhere? Now's the time.

(Addendum, March 1). A.N. wrote me an email with the following comment, with which I agree : Delightful post, but your glossing over gnocci is misleading. While the ingredients list couldn't be simpler, I believe it's extraordinarily difficult to make. I've had gnocci in dozens of restaurants and homes and am far more often disappointed than dazzled. I've never been able to discover the secret, though I was once told after a transcendant experience that the key is to used potato flakes (as opposed to whole potatoes) to ensure consistency. That being said, when the appear as fluffy pillows of starchy love, no pasta can share their bed.

A.N. is right-- I haven't made gnocci in years, and wasn't impressed with my efforts then, either. So this will be a fun challenge in the days or weeks to come: making good gnocci. Thanks, A.N.!

12. Pierogies and 13. Samosas
I'm still in the R&D phase here, so more anon.

14. Potato and Onion Tart
Quick notes: in a pre-baked (weighted, 400°) pastry crust, make a bed of sliced onions that have been sautéed in butter with caraway seeds and chopped rosemary. Cover with a layer of sliced boiled potatoes. Then add a basic savory custard (two eggs, cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg) and bake in a 450° oven until the custard sets, about 15 minutes.

15. Frittata
An old standby. I like making frittate because they're even better at room temperature (with a salad, or as an hors-d'oeuvre) than they are hot.
The key for a potato frittata is to cube the potatoes quite small so that they fry quickly. Peas pair well with potatoes, as do fried onion slices and thawed artichoke hearts.

Doesn't He Need Tortillas?

We've just returned, moments ago, from a lovely dinner at our friend C's house. During our trip back, H. mused that the house's exquisitely coordinated decor makes her want to throw away everything we own and start anew. I know what she means. My fantasy goes one step further, however: I'm compelled to buy a whole new house. That way there's no need for the tedium of disposal. We can start developing our new design sensibility right away, on a fresh canvas.

The meal C. prepared began with a tortilla soup that was both delicious and storied. I plan to blackmail him for the recipe; if this proves successful I will subsequently add it to this post.

We've had the pleasure of enjoying many notable soups in recent months, from Alex's top-notch Slovenian consommé to P1's now-legendary truffled oxtail soup. My enthusiasm for C's tortilla soup is not intended to slight these--or any other-- soups of the recent past. What excites me most about the tortilla soup is that it is designed to be supplemented, and C's version seems destined to accumulate countless anecdotal and culinary extras in the future. Especially once I get my hands on the recipe.

The soup came out in a large terrine with a gorgeous, rough-hewn wooden serving spoon. I helped C. bring in the various accoutrements, which were to comprise a bowl of diced avocado and some shredded cheese. C. couldn't find the cheese, though, so we abandoned this. Striving to be helpful, and having noticed that the tortilla soup was smooth in texture, I asked if I could bring in the tortillas.

Evidently-- or so I presumed-- C. had forgotten to add tortillas to the soup. My helpfulness was thus one step shy of meddlesome, and one step beyond pedantic: "Where are the tortillas?" I thought, fortunately, to myself. "Doesn't he need tortillas? Surely one needs tortillas to make tortilla soup." I suppose I'd been expecting to see a flotilla of Doritos bobbing in the soup.

I later discovered my error. The tortillas, see, were already in the soup. Once roasted and shredded, they had been blended into the very essence of the broth itself. The result is remarkable: a thick vélouté that isn't the least bit starchy, but which possesses a complexity of flavor made possible by the (now invisible) fried tortillas.

The recipe came to C. via his Aunt Barbara, who used to travel to Cancun just for the tortilla soup. The possibilities for embellishment are legion. But in short, it seems she wrote to the restaurant which served her favorite version, and this is the recipe that she passed along to C. I've noticed that several of C's dishes have been attributed to his Aunt Barbara-- I even joked that "Aunt Barbara" might in fact be an invented personae, the name C. uses for that part of himself that cooks so well. Either way, she sounds like a remarkable person. So here's to Aunt Barbara, and her soup research.

And, thanks to C., here's the recipe; which I cite verbatim from his email:

As to Aunt Barbara's recipe, it's totally easy. You cut corn tortillas into strips and fry them in olive oil in the soup pot. Once they're slightly crispy, remove them. Then put a jalapeño pepper, a medium sized onion, and a clove of garlic in a food processor and blend, and then add that to the soup pot, simmer for 5 minutes, then add the tortilla strips, simmer another 5 minutes. Then add 16 oz plum tomatoes (although I like my soup tomatoey, so I usually put a bit more), 3 tsp of cumin into the pot and let simmer another 15 minutes. Add 2 1/2- 3 quarts of chicken stock and cook until it reduces by about a third. Then blend it all until its smooth. The recipe recommends garnishing with cheddar cheese, cilantro, and avocado, and that's the part I screwed up tonight. Easy breezy.

Thank you, Aunt Barbara! And thank you C.!

Tonya's Roadhouse

Some people are very good at getting themselves employed. Naturally there's more to this than simply brandishing a snappy résumé or an efficiency of manner. In high school, I'd marvel at the kids who seemed to secure gainful employment effortlessly, as if through osmosis. H., unsurprisingly, was one of those people. She was a police matron in high school. Police matron? How does that happen?

My theory is that it's their sense of direction: some people know where, as well as how, to look for work. When it comes time for them to find a job, one realizes that they've been laying tracks all along. They've met people along the way; they've noticed possibilities; they've weighed their options.

I'm not one of those people. I've always had enormous difficulty finding work. I chalk this up to a poor sense of direction. This, in fact, is one of the reasons I chose a "career." A career, you see, has a path. All it requires is for you to follow it. But even this has proven something of a challenge.

As a teenager, my method of looking for work was one step short of hoboing. This step, I should add, was fairly substantial: privilege, for one. And a car. So it was really nothing like hoboing at all, save for the chronic waywardness.

Though earnestly keen to sweat and toil, I spent many days driving from local business to local business, knocking on doors. I didn't have a script. "Uh, do you have any openings?" would have been all I'd have said. One of the jobs I eventually landed-- through a temp firm-- involved loading doors onto trucks: in that instance openings were at a premium. Of course, so too were closings.

Despite its almost unerring failure, this practice continued for many years. The result is an employment history that reads like a litany of the banal. My first gig, at age 14, involved "landscaping" for a Texaco station in my town. This involved clearing trees and brush from what I remember to be an exceptionally large and dense swathe of forest. I had poison ivy for weeks.

None of this, of course, had anything to do with food. But the summer following my high school graduation brought about a change of scenery and a new set of businesses to solicit. That summer, I lived on Cape Cod. On a sailboat. Tough times.

The first businesses I called upon were those near Mashpee harbor, a little village halfway between Falmouth and Hyannis. Failing that, I hit up all the shops in the then-developing Mashpee Commons. There was an upscale pizza restaurant in the plaza, in which I felt a glimmer of possibility. No dice. But the idea of working for a restaurant began to take hold, and I started cruising all the local restaurants.

I recall visiting an upscale French restaurant with a name that sounded impressive, but was really only an everyday word translated into French. Let's say it was "Mushroom." I spoke with the owner (or so he claimed) about washing dishes and, at his request, wrote my contact information in the logbook. Next to my name I added my job description: plongeur.

But I was going to college. Surely I could embellish this even further. So I added: extraordinaire. They never called me. This is perfectly understandable: who wants an extraordinary dishwasher? Dishwashing is one of those fields in which ordinariness is an ideal characteristic. Dishes need to be cleaned, not embellished.

But the restaurant idea had now taken on the allure of the inevitable. Just down the road was a sprawling surf n' turf restaurant called Tonya's Roadhouse. It was the first establishment I'd visited in which the service entrance actually brought you near the manager's office. So rather than braving an awkward chain of encounters with prep-cooks, sous-chefs, dishwashers, and stock-deliverers, I walked right in and spoke with the restaurant's manager.

That summer I became a dishwasher. Eventually, I graduated to stocking the salad bar. The following summer, I graduated one step further to fry cook. I learned just enough about working in a kitchen to develop a lifelong complex about it.

Yeah, I was a line cook. But not really.

Two Gifts

Lucky me! What a treat: last night, a Valentine's day dinner courtesy of Mark Bittman. Tonight, just shortly ago, a portage dinner of salmon nabe. The latter was courtesy of my friends C. and E., who came over for a visit and brought an entire supper with them. What a lovely way to close the week. Two gifts, two nights in a row. In each case, a magical influx of energy and ideas.

Yesterday, H. forwarded Bittman's February 13th "Minimalist" column on short ribs braised in coffee, red wine, and chilies. Since we often have leftover coffee these days— we don't work at home much any more, so we rarely finish a pot— this dish virtually begged us to make it.

Braised beef chunks often end up tasting like Beef Bourguignon, regardless of your intentions. You can select different sizes and shapes of meat, and you can add various degrees of aromatic fanfare. But in the end, you wind up with winey-flavored beef.

I like winey-flavored beef; don't get me wrong. But it does lean toward the monochromatic.

The coffee and chile solution is a welcome intervention. I thus recommend this recipe for any occasion that calls for a modest change of pace. I recently made short ribs braised in ginger and porter, and there's a similar bitterness at work here. But in the Bittman recipe the chilies-- smoky chipotles and pasillas-- complement the coffee's bitterness with a rich bouquet of spice and warmth.

The recipe-- here it is-- is quite simple, so I won't bother reiterating it. One thought for the future, though, is how best to accompany this dish, since its braising liquid cries out for starchy accompaniment. We served it with beans and rice, but that was determined largely by circumstance: the beans and rice were holdovers from the previous night's dinner. I would think that homemade corn tostones would work nicely, or even something involving plantains. A flavorful starch— smoky tamales, even— would frame the ribs well.

*** Part II ***

With H. off to visit C-Spice and Schooly in Cincinnati for the weekend, I had been facing the prospect of cooking for one (or for 1.5, with little A. nibbling at the corners). Such conditions often yield empty dinners of cereal and beer. So it was with no small amount of pleasure-- and relief-- that my evening guests C. and E. came equipped with the makings of a marvelous nabe.

Nabe, in its highest form, is Sumo food. In principle it's a Japanese bouillon made from three simple ingredients: water, sake, and miso paste. The flavor becomes increasingly complex as additional ingredients are added to the pot. Tonight's featured additions were daikon radish, fingerling potatoes, carrots, onions, and shungiku (chrysanthemum greens); tofu; and assorted seafood.

In C.'s preparation, the ingredients arrived pre-cut and beautifully arranged in a bountiful mise-en-place. After bringing the broth to a boil in a traditional earthenware pot, she added the root vegetables. Then, about ten minutes later, she added the greens, as well (I think) as the tofu. Ten minutes later, she added cubed salmon and shrimp, simmered the whole dish for about five minutes, and brought it to the table.

In the collective Sumo-workshop mode of cooking, items can be thrown into the bouillon at will, since the broth is still cooking actively throughout the meal. It's hard to replicate this at home, especially given our relative lack of floor space. So C.'s nabe was a singular event, rather than an odyssey of dunking and boiling that might unfold throughout an evening. Yet it was no less playful for its simultaneity-- nor any less delicious. Poor H. missed out: these were the "clean flavors" she so heartily enjoys.

All the same, H. won't mourn. Thanks to a canceled flight, she's stuck in Philly tonight, and can thus go to Tacqueria Veracruzana instead. So she can find consolation in carnitas.

Deep Freeze

I'm conflicted.

Snow continues to fall outside; it's been snowing all day. The roads are quiet, save for the intermittent plow. Earlier this evening, before dusk, we took A. for a walk in the snow. It was picture-perfect, one of the few picturesque winter moments we've had this year. And now I'm sitting inside with a cup of hot tea. It's warm inside. The dishes are clean.

I'm conflicted, though, because I made steak frites tonight under troublesome conditions.

The steak, you see, was frozen.

I'd purchased a thick-cut Delmonico steak on Saturday. But when it became clear that we weren't going to manage it then, I shifted it into the freezer. The steak went back into the fridge this morning, but by cooking time it was only superficially thawed.

"Don't do it!" you say. "Order pizza!"

I'm conflicted because it wasn't a total disaster. Indeed, had I been just a wee bit more patient in my preparation, the experience might even have been revelatory.

I followed more or less the same general procedure as for a "normal" steak. I superheated a cast-iron skillet, and heated up some oil for the fries. I then added some olive oil and a pat of butter to the hot skillet, and seared the meat aggressively. I was especially thorough with this step tonight, as the steak was nearly two inches thick. And, of course, frozen. When it was seared dark brown on all sides, I placed it in a 300° oven until the thermometer showed me signs of warmth.

Meanwhile, I double-fried some matchstick potatoes and onion slices. To conserve oil, I cooked the fries in small batches. I also made a quick sauce with some sautéed shallots and a little tub of P1's marvelous demi-glace. This demi-glace lives in the freezer, in a tower of little tupperware tubs. In an ideal world, I would have made a proper sauce (a little red wine vinegar early on would have brightened things considerably). But tonight's was a quick dinner, dammit, and I wasn't about to go noodling around with fancy reductions and vinegars. Phooey.

But this same lack of patience led me to slice the meat before it had enough time to rest. And, given that the meat had been frozen, the consequences were a little more significant than usual. While quite serviceable, the steak slices were just a touch too bleu through the center, and perhaps a shade less tender than they might otherwise have been. But not a disaster.

Intriguingly, the meat was evenly pink throughout, in contrast to the seared exterior. This is a good thing. The logic for bringing steaks to room temperature is to preserve precisely this kind of evenness. I'm far from advocating the habit of cooking frozen steaks. But with a few moments more in the oven, and a longer rest, it might have worked. Who knows. Let's send a letter to the folks at Cook's magazine.

Here's an additional caveat: there are far more appropriate dishes for a snowy night than steak frites. This is café fare, after all, and it accommodates itself better to evenings when the air is crisp, rather than cold; and when the accompaniment of choice is, say, a Southwestern red rather than a duly Northeastern hot chocolate.
For on such crisp evenings, the house won't fill with greasy smoke from the skillet, as it did tonight. You can open a window.

Simple Foods, Clear Fluids

Central Pennsylvania has recently been cited as the hub of a multifarious flu outbreak.

Our household, while hardly a crucible of sickness and misery, has not been spared. The stomach virus hit us mid-way through the Super Bowl party we attended briefly last weekend. Not only did this bring our partygoing to an abrupt close, but it also torpedoed the post I'd been planning to write ("Supper Bowl"). Perhaps this was for the best.

Since then, our diet has fairly dwindled. Campbell's soup, Cheerios, crackers: foods that begin with the letter C have characterized our week.

Some notable exceptions: several job-recruitment dinners at various local restaurants; a tasty Gumbo last night at a friend's house; and, on Friday, a delicious garlic soup by A. and K. I've since renamed "AUM Shinrikyo." Follow the link if you like.

After a full week of sensory deprivation, and after many weeks of toil and burden, I was primed for a return to form this evening. My plan was to sear up our favorite Frenchie standby, steak frites, with a little roasted asparagus on the side. But alas, order has not yet been restored to the universe. So the café steak, and the frites, will have to wait.

So perhaps in the week to come I will dedicate some blog posts to reminiscences. Why dwell on the present when you can moulder in the past?