This versatile and delicious staple deserves to have its praises sung.
This versatile and delicious staple deserves to have its praises sung.
A badly prepared potato should be classified as a crime against humanity. Perhaps this is a bit strong, but honestly, this delicious and versatile root vegetable deserves prime culinary treatment — if for no other reason than that it’s a fabulous conduit for butter and heavy cream. Everyone knows about French fries, of course, but have you tried hash? The kind you make at home by cubing Yukon Golds and a sweet potato and frying them together in bacon grease? Or home fries coated in a mix of water and cornstarch and baked to crispy perfection? And what about potatoes mixed with bacon, cheese, onions, and butter and left in a pan on the grill until tender and caramelized?
It’s difficult to overstate my love of potatoes. Baked, mashed, stewed, or fried, I will eat them in nearly any form and almost can’t get tired of them. This mild obsession goes back to one of my earliest memories: the potato dish. This wonderful Midwest concoction combines frozen hashbrowns, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and cream of mushroom soup into one of the most delectable sides you’ll ever eat. Topping it with corn flakes tossed in butter is really gilding the lily, but how can you resist? My best friend’s mom would make this for every homeschool gathering or church potluck, and while I generally would never dream of pushing aside women and small children for food, that casserole made it tempting to contemplate.
Yes, I’m well aware that potatoes contain lots of starch and carbs, and that frying or mixing them with fats and dairy makes them even less healthy. For the purposes of this essay, though, we’re going to ignore all that and just appreciate the wonderful dishes the potato — when treated properly — can give us. That “treated properly” bit is highly important. There are quite a few potato varieties in the world, but here in the U.S., we have three main types: red, golden, and russet. If you’ve had a poorly cooked potato, it’s probably because the right type wasn’t used for the given recipe. You see, the starch content in each of the three types is different, so they shine best with fairly different applications.
Take red potatoes. They have a low starch content and don’t break down well when you cook them. These spuds are wonderful if you leave the skin on and roast them. Because they hold their shape so well, they are an excellent choice for potato salad (especially this one, which, because I’m a sucker for peas, I love).
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Yukon Gold potatoes — my personal favorite. Bake these potatoes, and you barely even need to put butter on them. Fry them, and they’re delicious even with just a bit of salt. My love of these potatoes and of hosting parties met this past week in the form of a duchess potato casserole from America’s Test Kitchen. Potatoes are an excellent choice for side dishes, since they’re easy to prep, can be crafted to fit many dietary restrictions, and can be scaled to feed basically any size crowd.
This particular dish is pretty much baked mashed potatoes, and because of the eggs included in the recipe, it puffs up very nicely in the oven. Along with skillet-roasted green beans and a honey-glazed pork shoulder, it made for a cozy meal on a chilly night.
Speaking of easily scalable sides: My family often jokes about the amount of food we can go through in a week, and potatoes are no exception. At Christmas time, it’s not unusual for us to consume 20 pounds of russets and Yukon Golds — not to mention the five pounds or so of sweet potatoes we’ll go through.
Yes, I’m well aware that sweet potatoes aren’t actually related to regular potatoes. This (unless you’re a horticulturist) is a minor detail, however, and given how delicious they are in my aforementioned hash, they’re allowed in this essay. I’m personally not wild about sweet potatoes, but perhaps my favorite dish of all time — both to make and to eat — is sweet potato gnocchi. Though the ingredients are simple — and it’s easy to make regular or gluten free — this dish is a bit time-consuming to create. Well, it takes lots of time if you’re like my mom and carefully put indentations in each piece of pasta (for both aesthetic and sauce-collecting reasons). I, however, am much less exact and tend to just cut my gnocchi pieces and boil them without any indentation. The best part about this dish? (Besides the cream sauces you can make to go with it.) You can prepare the gnocchi and then freeze it before boiling and frying, making for a quick meal later down the road.
Clearly, potatoes are good for more than just frying and stewing. Another technique I sometimes employ is putting mashed potatoes in my bread. This is a clever tip since adding potatoes gives you a fluffier, more moist, more tender bread. These dinner rolls have been a big hit in the past, and this potato-dill sandwich loaf is on my to-make list.
Do potatoes need me to defend them or to sing their praises? Not really. But when they fill my egg bowls, can be eaten with applesauce and sour cream, melt into my beef stew, grace my Super Bowl party table, or give me a reason to eat blue cheese sauce, I feel that this is the least I can do for them.
So next time you’re at the store, add a few potatoes to your cart. In the mood for potato salad? Grab some red ones. Have a roast in the oven? Pick out some Yukon Golds for a creamy mashed dish. Or you can keep it old school, select the weightiest russet in the bin, coat the skin with salt and olive oil, and bake to crisp, fluffy doneness. A dinner worth waiting for.