Pandemic Potato Salad

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Chelsea

This is a recipe born out of need and change and a series of odd connections. I bought a bag of red potatoes intending to make a gratin, but a sudden upswing in temperature made the idea of roasted anything feel oppressive. Meanwhile, my beautiful heads of romaine lettuce in my garden started to bolt, and my parsley was already flowering. I thought of salad, of course, and then of potato salad, and then of likely ways I could combine them. A potato salad with green beans and parmesan I had in Eugene crept back into my mind, and parmesan reminded me of pesto. Pesto is such a convenient way of using excess greens, even when they are getting bitter, so I wondered if lettuce pesto would be tasty. The garlic and parmesan of pesto along with the lettuce reminded me of Caesar salad, and suddenly I was adding anchovies and mayonnaise and hard-boiled eggs for good measure, and this franken-potato-salad was born.*

This is not one of those “not your average gloopy potato salad” iterations. I must admit, as an ardent mayonnaise lover, I resent those complaints about gloopiness. This one is gloopy. It is unapologetically gloopy. It is a potato salad for mayonnaise aficionados. But I have an important secret when it comes to those “gloopy” mayonnaise based summer salads, whether their bases are potato or pasta: you have to add the dressing while the starch base is still warm. If the potato chunks or noodles are cold, the dressing just weakly sits beneath and around them. If it’s stirred in while they are warm – or even hot – the dressing soaks in. The texture is better, the flavor is better, and you can get the hot part of the process out of the way hours before you intend to serve anything. At least 2 hours in the fridge after everything is combined ensures nicely melded flavors – the anchovy mellows, the garlic relaxes, the lettuce emerges not as a strong presence but as a juicy green background taste we found quite pleasant.

Because I’m me, I couldn’t quite leave well enough alone: since the lettuce and anchovy and parmesan allude to Caesar salad, and since lately we’ve been all about crunch and texture, I wanted to give a nod to the crouton component. A shower of panko crumbs well toasted in olive oil right over the top added crunch, though if you wanted to be a little less excessive, you could probably used well-toasted almonds instead. I’d suggest a rough chop for rubbly texture.

* As I wrote this, I was weirdly reminded of my most recent and ongoing scholarly project, which suffers from organizational stress. A few weeks ago a fellow academic tweeted “How has anybody ever structured a piece of writing? It’s an impossible con, all the things to be said must be said at exactly the same time or none of them will make sense” (Jones). I felt that as I tried to explain the intersecting idea strands for this salad: in my brain, the connections happened nearly instantaneously. Here, which do you mention first? The potato salad with parmesan that reminded me of pesto? The lettuce that evoked Caesar? Words prohibit the all-at-once-ness that feels so natural when we think…

Pandemic Potato Salad

Serves 6-8 as a side, not that you’re having anyone over right now…

2 ½-3 hours, including chilling time

6-8 ounces green beans or haricot verts

10-12 medium red potatoes

4-6 cloves garlic

5-9 anchovy filets (wide range, but adjust according to how much you love anchovies)

zest and juice from 1 lemon

1 head romaine lettuce, core removed, leaves roughly torn

1 cup packed parsley leaves and stems

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Optional: 2 tablespoons olive oil and ½ cup panko breadcrumbs or ½ cup roughly chopped almonds

Blanch the green beans in a large pot of boiling salted water. This will take 2-3 minutes for large size beans, or about 90 seconds for skinny little haricot verts. Remove from the pot and douse in cold water to stop them from cooking further. Reserve the salted cooking water. Quarter the potatoes (or if they are gigantic, cut down into large bite-sized pieces) and place them in the same pot. Fill the pot with more water if needed to cover the potatoes, then bring back to a boil over high heat. Turn down to medium and simmer until the potatoes are just tender when pierced with a fork. Drain and set aside while you make the dressing.
If you need to grate the cheese, load the belly of your food processor with small chunks of parmesan, then run on high speed until the cheese is adequately broken down. Empty the processor, measure out the required cup of cheese, and set aside to add later.
Process the garlic cloves, anchovy filets, and lemon zest and juice together first into a clumpy paste. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the processor, then add about half of the torn lettuce leaves and the parsley and pulse a few times to break them down. When there is enough room in the processor, add the remaining lettuce and parsley and process on high until the mixture is finely chopped.
Scrape down the sides of the processor again and add the mayonnaise and reserved parmesan cheese. Process on high speed until well combined. Taste for seasoning; add salt and pepper as needed. It’s important to wait until now to add the salt, since the anchovy, mayonnaise, and cheese are all salty already.
Add the still-warm potatoes and the drained green beans to a large bowl. Stir in about ¾ of the dressing until the vegetables are evenly coated. Gently fold in the chopped hard-boiled eggs. Add more dressing, if needed.
At first this will probably taste too salty. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to mellow and combine. Bring back to room temperature before serving.
This is ready to serve as is. But if you like a little excess (or if crunch is important to you), heat the optional 2 TB olive oil in a small skillet, then stir in either ½ cup panko breadcrumbs or ½ cup roughly chopped raw almonds and toast until deeply golden. Sprinkle over the top of the potato salad just before serving.

Patatas Bravas with Chorizo Sofrito

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Chelsea

This is a dish that plays with tradition, inspired by a place that plays with tradition. And really, as we approach a time of the year deeply steeped in traditions, I think that’s nice: to be able to play while invoking the original makes both the respected origins and the process of recreating (read like the kind of “recreation” you do during a summer vacation, not like the semi-faithful attempt at “creating again”) more fun.

Traditionally, patatas bravas are fried cubes or chunks of potato, served warm with a spicy sauce as part of a tapas spread. These are whole baby or fingerling potatoes, cooked through, smashed lightly, then pan fried until pieces of the skin go quite crunchy and small pieces that fall off get crackly in the almost-smoking oil at the bottom of the pan.

Sofrito, on the other hand… well, the thing about tradition here is that sofrito differs depending on where it’s being made. As well as Spain and Latin America, Italy, Greece, and even the Philippines have versions of this cooking base of aromatics and vegetables, long simmered into something like a ragout. This one, with red bell pepper as well as onion and garlic and some crumbles of chorizo, probably most closely resembles the Cuban iteration.

The dish I’m recreating here was served to me years ago as an appetizer at Father’s Office, a Westside gastropub staple and home not only of the divisive Office Burger, but of the delightfully draconian “no substitutions, no ketchup” policy (which I for one appreciate, though understand others’ objections to). Instead of the controversial burger, N. and I ordered a few small plates to share and couldn’t get over these potatoes, which arrived in a golden heap, their skins wrinkled in a way that can only be achieved by deep frying, smothered in a rich, spicy sofrito that, forgive me, was not exactly like a thick chili, but is the best way I can describe the sauce if you’ve never had it. On top of that, a generous crumble of goat cheese and some cilantro sprigs, and the same night I was looking up the history and variations of the component parts so I could recreate it.

It’s funny, then, that I forgot about it, and it only resurfaced when N. suggested it for dinner last week. Even funnier, given that we exclaimed our enjoyment through the whole meal, that I could have gone half a year or more at a time without thinking about it. I hope, after you dig in, that doesn’t happen to you.

Patatas Bravas with Chorizo Sofrito

Serves 4 as a main or 6-8 as an appetizer

45-60 minutes

8-10 ounces pork chorizo, casing removed

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 large onion, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 red bell pepper, seeds removed, minced

optional: 1 jalapeño, seeds and ribs removed if you wish, minced

1 TB tomato paste

2 pounds fingerling or other baby potatoes

salted water to boil

4 TB olive oil or vegetable oil

5-6 ounces crumbled goat cheese

¼ cup chopped cilantro

To make the chorizo sofrito, cook down the chorizo in a large skillet over medium heat until it is almost cooked through, breaking it up with a wooden spoon or flat edged wooden spatula.
Add the onion, garlic, bell pepper, and jalapeño if using. Sprinkle over the cumin seeds and paprika and stir to integrate. Cook over medium low or low heat until the vegetables are very soft and almost homogeneous: 30-40 minutes. You are looking for something like a thick ragout. Taste for salt and spice and adjust as needed.
While the vegetables are sweating and melting, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the potatoes. Cook until potatoes are tender. Drain and set aside until they are just cool enough to handle, then use a potato masher, the heel of your hand, or another flat tool to crush the potatoes lightly.
Dry out the pot you used to boil the potatoes and heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium high heat until shimmering. Add potatoes in a single layer (this will require multiple batches). Salt very lightly and cook over medium high heat until they are toasty brown, about 4 minutes. Flip and repeat. Remove from the pot and repeat the browning process with the remaining potatoes, adding more oil as needed.
To serve, pile up some of the potatoes in a shallow bowl. Ladle on a generous helping of the sofrito, then crumble over a few ounces of goat cheese and a good sprinkle of chopped cilantro.

Potato Crusted Salmon with Pea and Arugula Puree

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Chelsea

There’s not much of a story here, only an observation my sister made that it seems like I’m into fancy food lately. I attribute this to spring break, when I made the dishes in my last three posts, because I had some time on my hands and I wanted to play. This recipe, and the deviled eggs crostini from last month, came from a list I keep on my laptop of food ideas, which oddly enough doesn’t often get used – I write down delicious-sounding concepts, and then I forget about them.

Not so with this one anymore. Very loosely imagined after a dish N. had years and years ago on the Oregon coast that just wasn’t as good as it should have been, I decided to top salmon filets with an herby crab salad, then wrap the whole thing in wafer-thin slices of potato and serve it over a velvety smooth puree of peas and arugula. Very spring.

The finished dish was good, and the flavor was delicious. It was not, however, as perfectly beautiful as it could have been, largely because I think to make this dish as gorgeous as it deserves to be, you really need a mandolin or a v-slicer, which is equipment I don’t have (largely because my kitchen storage situation leaves a bit to be desired). I made do with a potato peeler, as can you, in a pinch, but the results were only passable, not stellar.

Notes below about crab and puree options: jumbo lump is, of course, the premium choice, but lately I’ve found a mixture of jumbo or regular lump and claw meat is just fine. As for the puree, as I note below, you can choose your texture to please your palate (and your partner’s); I went with something pesto-like, but processing or blending further would offer a smoother sauce, and passing through a strainer, though somewhat time consuming, would produce a silky bright green sauce. Proceed as desired.

Potato Crusted Salmon with Pea and Arugula Puree

About 45 minutes

Serves 2 (with leftover crab salad)

For the crab salad:

Zest of one lime

Zest of one lemon

3 TB finely minced dill + a few extra sprigs to garnish if desired

1 TB finely minced chives

2 TB finely minced celery and/or radish

10 ounces crab meat, carefully picked through for cartilage pieces

about 3 TB mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

For the salmon:

2 6 ounce boneless, skinless salmon filets

3-4 medium Yukon gold potatoes

salt and pepper to taste

1 TB butter

1 TB olive oil

For the pea and arugula puree:

4 ounces defrosted frozen peas

2 TB butter

2 ounces baby arugula

1 TB lemon juice or to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Optional: blanched pencil asparagus

First, make the crab salad: combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. You can use whatever sort of crab you want; I like a mixture of lump, for the sweetness, and regular or crab and claw meat, for the affordability. Start with the recommended 3 TB mayonnaise, but you can add more if desired. You are looking for just enough that the mixture starts to hold together. Set the finished crab salad aside until it is time to assemble.
For the salmon, preheat the oven to 375F. Do a quick but thorough check of the filets to ensure there are no bones. Salt and pepper the fish on both sides, then set aside until the potatoes are ready.
The easiest way to proceed is to make very thin vertical slices of the potatoes on the wider side using a mandolin slicer, so you end up with long, wide strips. If you are using a mandolin, you will probably only need 2 potatoes worth of wide strips. Use the third potato to make round slices, like potato chips, by cutting horizontally across the small ends. If you don’t have a mandolin, you can do a passable job with a y-shaped potato peeler. Again, try for the longest, widest slices you can manage. You’ll probably need all 4 potatoes if you are using a peeler, because at a certain point you won’t be able to carve out clean slices anymore. Use 3 of the potatoes to make the long, wide strips, then use the fourth one to make the round, potato chip shaped slices.
To assemble, on a cutting board, lay out a row of long, wide potato strips, slightly overlapping, about an inch longer on each side than the filet. Add a second row just above it, again overlapping, so you have a kind of carpet of potato slices, as in the photo below.
Set the filet in the center of the potato slices, flesh side up (that is, the side where the skin used to be should rest on the potato layer). Using a spoon, top the filet with a few tablespoons of the crab salad, spreading it evenly across the surface.
Now the hard part: working quickly, begin wrapping the potato slices around the salmon. As you bring the overlapping layers up to the top, shingle on a layer of the round slices to hold the long pieces up and together. Check out the photo below to see what I mean.
Okay, now the other hard part: heat the butter and olive oil together in a medium skillet over medium high heat. When the fat is quite hot, use a spatula and your hand to carefully but quickly add the wrapped filets to the skillet, trying to get the shingled top side into the butter and oil mixture first. Sear without disturbing for 4 minutes, then carefully flip and place the whole skillet into your preheated 375F oven for 10 minutes.
While the fish is in the oven, make the pea and arugula pesto: in a small pot, cook the peas with the 2 TB butter just until they are hot. Add them to a food processor with the arugula, the lemon zest, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Process until fairly smooth, then taste for seasoning and adjust as needed.
If you want to be fancy, you can strain the puree until a thin, smooth sauce. I decided to leave it more like a pesto texture, though, for ease.
If you are making the asparagus, now is a good time to blanch it and toss it with a tiny bit of butter, lemon, and salt.
To serve, place a scoop of the puree in the center of a plate or a shallow bowl. Use the back of a spoon to spread it into a circle. Alternatively, if you strained the mixture into a sauce, just pour some into the bottom of the vessel you’ve chosen. Place the potato-wrapped fish carefully just to the side of the center, so you can see some of the bright green circle underneath. If you made the pencil asparagus, you can nestle this between the fish and the edge of your plate or bowl, as in the photo earlier in the post.

Slow Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Ginger Lime Butter and Charred Broccoli

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Chelsea

By now, given that it’s not only all over Pinterest, but both Saveur and Smitten Kitchen have a version (though to be fair, hers is based on Saveur’s offering), you probably know about slow roasted sweet potatoes which means I am completely overdue unoriginal on trend with this one. But that’s okay. As a scholar of medieval texts, I am nothing if not interested in old material. Besides, this one comes with thanks to Chef Alex Guarnaschelli and her propensity to respond to people’s recipe request tweets – while tweet-stalking fangirling scrolling through my feed last week, I noticed a reader ask advice for a lamb chop dish, and Alex recommended a side of sweet potatoes with a ginger butter.

That was all the light-bulb I needed for how to dress up these already-basically-perfect sweet potatoes, roasted for an agonizingly long time until their sweetness deepens, and their flesh collapses into rich orange velvet, and their skins need the barest flick of a fork to split, and just before serving you can shove them under the broiler just until they start to blister and crackle for extra texture. Ginger would be delightful here, cutting sharply through the butter and the starchy softness of the potato (you keep your fresh ginger in the freezer, right, for easy grating?). I knew immediately I would add some brown sugar, or maybe some maple syrup, but set all that off with a generous grating of lime zest to keep it from becoming just deconstructed sweet potato pie (though honestly, that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing…). And rather than make them play second fiddle to some protein, these would be the central feature of our plates.

An almost-dessert main requires a sidekick to keep it oriented, so our vegetable costar would have to be savory and kicky and intense. I went green. Broccoli, sliced into thick, steak-like slabs to expose flat, crisp-tender centers of each stem, aggressively seared until deeply bronzed, then tossed with a pungent mixture of lime juice and fish sauce for that deep, salty-savory funk. At first taste, N. was thrown off by the sourness of the sauce combination, and I’ll admit, it is strong. But then he kept coming back for more, as the briny strangeness seeped temptingly into the bright florets.

This is a weekend meal to be sure, given the length of time needed for the potatoes. But it’s largely hands off; once you stow them in the oven, glistening with oil and scattered with salt and pepper because we are going to eat every shred of that skin, you can putter around, or sink into a movie, or venture out into whatever sort of garden you might be planning for, or indulge in a cat nap, or continue your binging of season two of Jessica Jones; you are free for whatever needs doing until it’s time to char the broccoli and lick your plate.

Slow Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Ginger Lime Butter and Charred Broccoli

Serves 4

About 2½ hours

For sweet potatoes:

4 large orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, approximately equal in size

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper

For ginger lime butter:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened but not melted

zest of 2 limes

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger (keep it in the freezer for easier grating) OR 2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 tablespoons brown sugar or maple syrup

For charred broccoli:

1 pound broccoli

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon fish sauce

Preheat the oven to 275F. While it warms, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Rub the sweet potatoes with the 1 tablespoon olive oil, arrange on the lined baking sheet, and sprinkle each generously with salt and pepper. Place carefully into the oven and bake at 275F for 2½ hours.
While the sweet potatoes take their sweet time, make the ginger lime butter. In a small bowl, use a spoon or a spatula or a small whisk to whip together the softened butter, the lime zest, the ginger, and the brown sugar. Once fluffy and well combined, cover with plastic wrap and stow in the fridge until a few minutes before it’s time to eat.
When the sweet potatoes have about ½ hour left to bake, start on the broccoli. Combine the 3 tablespoons vegetable oil and 2 tablespoons sesame oil in a small bowl. Cut the broccoli into large, steak-like slices straight across the head – the point is to have lots of flat sides of broccoli flesh to lay against the pan.
Heat about 1 tablespoon of the oil mixture in a large skillet over high heat. When the oil is shimmering but not quite smoking, carefully arrange slices of broccoli over the surface in a single layer. Try not to crowd; you will likely need to do this in a few batches. Cook without moving until the underside of each broccoli slice is deeply bronzed, around 2-3 minutes depending on your stove. Flip each piece over and repeat, so both sides are darkly browned and the broccoli is barely tender. Remove to a bowl or serving dish and repeat, adding more of the oil mixture when needed, until all of the broccoli is cooked.
While you are cooking the batches of broccoli, whisk together the 1 tablespoon lime juice and 1 tablespoon fish sauce in a small bowl. When all of the broccoli is done, pour on the sauce mixture and toss to combine.
After 2½ hours, the sweet potatoes are done. For an extra layer of flavor and texture, if you wish, set them under your broiler on high for a few minutes just before serving, until the skin blackens and crackles just a little bit, then carefully remove to a plate, split down the center, add a heaping helping of the ginger lime butter, and serve with a side of the broccoli.

“Big Three” Vichyssoise

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Chelsea

Summer is a strange time for soup. Yes, the need for a vegetal base in most means the potentials for flavors are as wide ranging as your harvest (or, let’s be honest, your farmers’ market or produce section), but there’s that whole hot food in hot weather issue that sometimes turns us off. I know that I, at my most overheated, want only cold salads, grilled meat, and an adult beverage.

Fortunately for us, and for this project, there are some soups designed to combat the heat problem, in that they are traditionally served cold. It’s a strange sensation if you’ve never tried one – the first time I had a cold soup, I found myself blowing on the spoon a few times before tasting, because even though I knew it wasn’t a hot liquid, my body was so programmed to treat it as such that I couldn’t overcome the instinct.

It’s possible that the best known, or perhaps most popular, cold soup is gazpacho, but since we just talked about tomatoes, and since the tomatoes I’ve seen at the market in the last few weeks haven’t quite been at their peak, I’m waiting till September, our hottest month in Southern California and therefore the best time to have this cold, raw, bright blend waiting for me in the fridge. Instead, I’m taking us in an unlikely and humble direction: let’s talk leeks and potatoes. It’s a little strange that these two wintry vegetables are the star players in one of the best known cold soups, but maybe it’s a subtle nod to wish fulfillment: if you find you want things to be cooler, then you are lusting after a season half a year away. Vichyssoise, this chilled reminder of cooler times, is the creation of chef Louis Diat. While working at The Ritz in New York in the early 1900s, Diat made a soup that reminded him of a simple bowl his mother used to put together when he was a child in France, but decided to serve it cold with a sprinkling of chives on top. The resulting concoction can be served chunky or pureed, hot or chilled, but as Diat popularized, ice cold and velvet smooth is the most common.

Most recipes are very simple. So simple, in fact, that cooks tend to add and tweak and substitute to make the finished product… what? More interesting? More original? More publishable, I suspect, without leaving the same old classic, unadorned team assembled. Butter. Potatoes. Leeks. Broth or water. Cream. Chives. Sometimes onion bolsters the leeks, various combinations of seasoning are added, and one intriguing option I saw used buttermilk at the end for tang. Differentiations lie in the quantities of the two star players – is it leek-led, or potato heavy? – the amount of broth and of cream, and the thickness of the finished product. To make mine, I turned to the internet and found, among a wealth of potentials, three that looked straightforward, fairly traditional, and from recognizable names. Then I realized all three authors’ names started with B, and I was stuck – the wordsmith in me loves the “rule of three,” and when your sources are Brown, Bittman, and Bourdain, how can you alter course?

There are a few differences in quantities and in seasoning options between these “big three,” but the basics are there. Alton Brown suggests Yukon gold potatoes, which I was pleased to see, since so many other recipes don’t specify. The biggest difference, interestingly, was in cooking time and dairy additions. Bourdain and Bittman sweat their leeks for only a few minutes; Alton (I just can’t call him “Brown”) goes for almost a full half hour. I erred on his side, since really, it’s a lot of leeks, and there are so few ingredients that we need to develop flavor somewhere.

I debated for a few minutes deglazing the limp, pale pile of cooked leeks with a few glugs of vodka to play with the potato idea, but ultimately decided against it, and wound up with a pot of sippable silk that needed only the traditional sprinkling of chives to make it interesting (well, N. thought it also needed a few additional grinds of pepper, but that’s him).

Two possibilities if you wanted to fancy this up. As we ate, unsurprisingly, we noted how this soup is on some level just really, really loose mashed potatoes spiked with onion flavor. To that end, we thought about the possibilities of baked potato toppings: imagine a bowl of creamed potato velvet topped not only with chives, but crumbles of crisp bacon, shreds of sharp cheddar, maybe even a dollop of sour cream. This would add some textual interest as well as other flavors, since I’ll admit a small bowlful of this is all you need – more than that and it runs the risk of monotony.

The other option plays into my bibliophilic considerations above. Small bowls are one thing, but what if you wanted to serve this as, say, an hors d’oeuvre option at a summer soiree? Imagine a cold, very lightly spiked soup in tall shot glasses, served on a shallow, ice-packed tray. You would need only to add a half cup or so of vodka to the concoction, before the long simmer if you want to eliminate the bulk of the alcohol, after if you want this to be a boozy option.

Like many thick soups, vichyssoise is even better on day two than day one, and conveniently, it takes no additional preparation since you don’t even have to reheat it. That said, the onion flavor from the leeks gets progressively stronger as the soup sits, so by day four it is pretty allium-heavy. Also convenient, though this is traditionally a cold soup, it is also delicious served warm, so if you can’t handle the cognitive dissonance, or your last weeks of August are looking chilly, this remains a viable option.

“Big Three” Vichyssoise

Serves 4-6 as a main course; 8-10 as an appetizer

About 60 minutes, plus at least 2 hours to chill

4 tablespoons butter

1 pound leeks, white and pale green portions only, split vertically, cleaned, and sliced thinly into half-moons

½ teaspoon salt

1 pound potatoes, preferably Yukon gold (3-4 small), diced

1 quart low sodium chicken or vegetable broth, or water

1 bay leaf

pinch nutmeg

½ – 1 cup heavy cream

additional salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon very thinly sliced chives

Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat, then add the leeks and the ½ teaspoon salt. Turn the heat down to low or medium low and allow the leeks to sweat, not brown, until very soft; about 20 minutes.
Add the potatoes, the broth or water, the bay leaf, and the nutmeg, cover, and bring to a boil over medium or medium-high heat. Once boil is attained, reduce the heat to low and simmer until the potato cubes are soft; 30-40 minutes.
When the potatoes are tender but not quite disintegrating, turn off the heat and VERY CAREFULLY puree either with an immersion blender or in a regular blender. If you are using a regular blender, blitz only small batches at a time and cover the top of the blender with a kitchen towel as well as the lid – pureeing hot liquid can cause spurts and small “explosions.” Get the mixture very, very smooth.
If you are feeling fussy (I was), pour the pureed liquid through a sieve or colander back into the cooking pot and return the heat to low. Add the heavy cream (start with ½ cup – we found we didn’t want more than that) and heat through. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to your liking. Sometimes cold food needs more seasoning than hot food, so you can be a little aggressive, especially with the salt. Potatoes can take it.
Transfer the smooth soup to a mixing or serving bowl and serve immediately, if you want it hot, or chill until quite cold: at least 2 hours.
Just before serving, sprinkle with chives.

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Potato, Roasted Garlic, and Rosemary Focaccia

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Chelsea

Are you as obsessed as I am with the Great British Baking Show / Great British Bake-Off? Originally aired on BBC, a few precious seasons have traveled across the pond courtesy of PBS (seriously, how great is PBS? Let’s keep it, even if that means making a few phone calls). I devoured the first season that became available in the U.S., then was forced with the second (which PBS called season 3) into consuming only in bite-size chunks, since I watched as it aired week by week. It was excruciating – all I really wanted was to binge. So when our friend D. told me she had bought season 2 (in Britain, season 4 [yeah, we’ve made the numbering all kinds of weird]), I couldn’t resist but do the same (and then, of course, it became available on Netflix a week or two later. Typical).

I won’t tell you who wins, in case you haven’t watched it, but I quickly developed some favorites, and one was Beca, the Welsh army wife who spun beautiful homey recipes into her bakes. One week, the bakers were asked to create breads with unconventional flours, to test their skills when gluten development was off the table. Beca made a focaccia using spelt flour and mashed potatoes, topped with rosemary sprigs and more potatoes, and I couldn’t hold myself back from the kitchen.

My version goes back to standard old bread flour, since when I wanted the bread I wanted it nowthankyouverymuch, and wasn’t willing to wander the grocery aisles looking for spelt. I’ve simplified just a touch, using the same kind of potatoes for both the dough and the topping, and I’ve replaced her suggestion of gorgonzola with whole cloves of roasted garlic. Upon consultation with another recipe or two, I bumped up the quantity of olive oil for a lovely oily crustiness that is a good reminder that focaccia really is just an extremely thick-crust pizza.

Including cooked and mashed potatoes in focaccia is not unusual, resulting in a dough with some heft and stickiness, but it bakes into such a satisfying, warm, golden rectangle that the clingy dough is ultimately worth dealing with, especially if you use a stand mixer to knead it. Unlike a regular loaf, this focaccia gets spread onto a well oiled baking sheet after its first rise, and prodded and stretched over the course of half an hour or so as it settles across the tray. As you persuade it to spread, you also aggressively stab at it with your fingertips to give it that classic dimpled look, which is somewhat satisfying if you’re, I don’t know, going through withdrawal because you don’t have any more episodes of a certain show to watch…

Since I ended up irregularly shingling the top of this bread with potato slices, I was a little bit concerned that it wouldn’t rise well in the oven, and that the moisture of the potatoes would make the spots underneath them seem a bit doughy and under baked (Paul Hollywood would not be pleased). Delightfully, the whole thing rose nicely, and yes, the surface underneath the potatoes did look a little anemic compared to the well browned exposed parts in between, but it was cooked through and made for a pleasant textural contrast with the crunch of the bread and the crispness of the baked rosemary sprigs.

Since it is – perhaps with the addition of some cheese – a near equivalent of a pizza, focaccia is practically a meal in itself. But it also pairs well with roasted chicken, or a bowl of soup, or a crisp salad. We even sliced the last few pieces horizontally, toasted them for a few minutes, and used them as the base for sandwiches. Much of the stress of shaping, scoring, and steaming associated with a boule or baguette is eliminated, making this a perfect project for a slow, easy day, and perhaps a glass of sparkling wine or an amber ale as an accompaniment for the warm, well-oiled square you can hardly wait to cut for yourself.

Potato, Roasted Garlic, and Rosemary Focaccia

Makes one 9x13x3 inch loaf, depending on how much yours rises

4 medium Yukon gold potatoes, sliced thinly (about ¼ inch)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

3-4 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary sprigs, divided

1 bulb garlic, bashed into separate cloves

1 cup warm water reserved from cooking the potatoes

¾ cup olive oil + 2 teaspoons, divided

Cook the sliced potatoes in plenty of boiling water until they are tender but not falling apart, 10-15 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water, and set aside half of the potato slices to cool. Mash the other half as smoothly as possible (I leave the skins on, so there will always be some shredded potato skin in there; that’s okay).
Once the potato water has cooled to just warm or room temperature (110F at the hottest), stir in the yeast and the sugar and let it sit about 10 minutes to dissolve and bubble.
Meanwhile, combine 3 cups of the bread flour, the tablespoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of the rosemary leaves, finely chopped, in the bowl of a stand mixer. With the mixer running at low speed and the paddle attachment affixed, drizzle in ½ cup of the olive oil. Add the bubbling yeast mixture and 1 cup of the cooled mashed potatoes and mix with the paddle attachment to bring together.
Switch to the dough hook and knead until smooth but still slightly sticky, around 5-8 minutes. If the mixture is not smoothing out or coming together, or it looks impossibly wet, add more flour ¼ cup at a time, mixing well in between additions.
Once the dough has come together into a smooth, slightly sticky ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at warm room temperature for about 1 hour, until it has doubled in size.
While the dough rises, heat the oven to 300F, put the garlic cloves in a small, oven-safe dish and drizzle them with salt, pepper, and 2 teaspoons of the olive oil, then cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake until the garlic cloves are soft and aromatic, around 20 minutes. Set them aside until they are cool enough to handle, and raise the oven temperature to 425F.
When the dough has risen, oil a 9×13 inch baking tray with the remaining ¼ cup of olive oil (I know, it sounds like a lot of oil, but this is that sort of bread. Trust me). Spread it out with your fingertips to evenly coat the tray, then tip in the risen dough. Stretch and push it out over the width and length of the tray, dimpling it with your fingers as you do so. It will be reluctant.
Let the dough rise on the tray for 30-45 minutes, stretching it and prodding it and dimpling it as it rises. Though it will spring back at first, after the first 15 minutes or so it will relax and stretch more willingly as it puffs. You want to encourage it all the way into the corners, and be aggressive with your dimpling, stabbing right through the dough with your fingertips, otherwise the impressions will bake right out and you will end up with a smooth loaf, not focaccia’s characteristic cragginess.
After 30-45 minutes when the dough has puffed and stretched to fill the baking tray entirely, peel the roasted, cooled garlic cloves and press the whole cloves into the bread at random intervals. Add the reserved potato slices, leaving some space in between them, then add the remaining 1tablespoon of rosemary in small sprigs or individual leaves. If you wish, a final drizzle of olive oil over the top and a sprinkle of coarse salt is a nice final touch.
Bake in the preheated 425F oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the focaccia is nicely puffed and a tawny golden-brown color in the spots between the potatoes.
Let it cool on a wire rack for at least ten minutes before slicing in.

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