Super Side #2

Oooh, such a cliff hanger from yesterday! And now, two food posts in a row!

I know! Ok. So in order to get to the end of the green bean dish, we gotta get cracking on our delicious oven roasted potatoes. 

The same great thing about the green beans is also true for these potatoes: the first part can be done in advance. Indeed, I parboiled both tuber and bean one after the other, refrigerated them both and then completed the cooking processes that evening. Anyways, I'm talking too much.

Oven Roasted Potatoes

serves 2

3 small russet potatoes (the recipe usually calls for red skinned potatoes, but this is a recession-proof side dish)

1 tbsp butter

salt and pepper to taste

fresh rosemary (optional)

Dude, do you see how few ingredients you need for this epicness? Good, I'm glad. Because I took a lot of pictures of the steps and I'm in the mood to share.

Put water on to boil. Take your potatoes and wash them.

Peel those bitches! And, if you're like me, after you peel them you will either be sad that you neither own chickens to feel the scraps to, or the recipe for a potato peel pie:

Now you're going to halve the potatoes lengthwise, but do it down the skinny side, not the fat side. Observe, this is the bad side:

You want this side:

I know, it's subtle, but it makes a difference. So now we have our lovely halved potatoes:

Do you hear the subtle change in you heated water? That's because it's boiling! Yay! Slip the potatoes in along the side of the pot, to avoid painful splashing.

Now give it about seven to ten minutes depending on how big your potatoes are. I used small ones, so I give it seven minutes. Remember too, there will always be smaller, skinnier, shorter halves of the tubers so it's best to have the fatter ones be slightly underdone, than have the runts be absolute mush.

 Anyways, test the taters by pushing in a tooth pick. It sounds snotty and pretentious, but honestly, you'll know when it's just right. A little bit of resistance, but mostly a gently give when you push it in:

See the bits of mushy potato on the bottom of that spoon above? We're flirting with disaster here. Bring on the ice bath!

I'll admit it, I was horsing around, waiting for these damn potatoes to cook, so I stuck a small amount of ice water into the freezer. What you are looking at up there, is completely frozen. I put some more warm water in there, but the heat from potatoes was enough to thaw it. Long story short, don't be an asshole and freeze a small amount of ice water. It wastes time. Moving on: it's ice time.

Once the potatoes have zero warmth in their centers when you press them between your fingers, remove them from the ice, pat them dry on a clean dish towel and, if you're doing this in advance, stack them between layers of paper towel and put them in the fridge:

And cover them up, pop them in the fridge, and take a disco nap:

But if you want to cook them right away, set the oven to 375 and, after you pat them dry, take a foil-lined, and greased pyrex, and arrange the potatoes, like so:

After 30 minutes, take potatoes out. They'll look like this. Don't worry, they won't be browned yet:

Give them a flip, and you'll see something like this:

Put them back in for another 30 minutes. When you take them out the second time, they'll look like this

Delicious and roasted to perfection. Flip them over to see the tops:

Oooh, gorgeous! Now here's where the green beans come back in to play. I said these two are perfect sides and they are even more perfect when they're side by side:

Another perfect thing is serving them with steak au poivre:

I hope you have an opportunity to enjoy these sides for the holidays or if not, sometime soon! Bon appetit!