Quick Roasted Potatoes

40 min start to finish.

I made these to go with Julian's Chicken.  They only take 40 - 45 min to bake and have a good flavor, but do a fantastic job of absorbing the leftover sauce on your plate when you smash them.  The mustard gives them a background bite that allows them to stand up to the sherry cream sauce on Julian's Chicken.

You'll need;

• 1 - 1.5 pounds of baby dutch yellow potatoes quartered (or fingerlings cut into 1/2 in pcs)
• 1 Tbsp coarse ground mustard
• 2 Tbsp butter (softened)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• (optional) 1 Tbsp chopped chives for color

Although I usually use Baby Dutch potatoes, I went colorful.  Bad move.
Different colored potatoes cook at different rates.  (The purple ones were awesome)

Preheat your oven to 425F and grease/butter/spray a small baking dish (9x9)

Place the quartered potatoes in a bowl and dust with salt and pepper.

Add the mustard, oil, and softened butter.  Add chives if desired.

Stir until the mustard and butter has coated all the surfaces of all the potatoes.

Spread out over the base of the dish making sure that none of the potato faces have adhered to each other.

Place the dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes stirring once halfway through.  Test for doneliness with a fork or paring knife.  It should enter the potato with no resistance.  (Resistance is futile)

Yorkshire Pudding(s)

Not anything like Jell-o brand . . .

Yorkshire puddings are a popover that are a typical accompaniment to a British Sunday roast.  The batter is dead simple and the technique isn't hard, but the devil is in the details.  This recipe makes 12 "puds" but you can halve it for smaller groups. 

BTW, the guy over at seriouseats.com has done a scientific test of all the lore surrounding these beauties.  So beat his suggestions and testing against my recipe.

Now back to cooking...here we go..

You'll need;

• 1.5 cups AP flour
• 1.5 cups milk
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 5 Tbsp vegetable oil
• a muffin/cupcake pan

Mix the eggs, flour, salt and milk until there are no chunks.  I transfer the batter into a 4 cup measuring cup cup after mixing.  The spout is the key to success later.

I would've mixed in the beaker, but my whisk doesn't get into the corners.

Refrigerate the batter for at least 30 minutes. 

25 minutes before you want to serve these you should preheat the oven to 450F and remove the batter from the fridge.

After the oven has come to temperature put about 1 tsp of vegetable oil (or a 50-50 mix of oil and roast drippings if you can swing it) into the bottom of each cup of the muffin pan.  The oil should be  1/4 in deep (less than 1 cm).

Put the pan into the oven to preheat the oil.  Ready the batter by giving it a last second stir.

Rinse off the spoon and keep it handy. 

When the oil is just smoking remove the pan from the oven and fill each cup 3/4 full of your batter.  Sizzling is normal at this point. Less batter is better than more.

Work quickly but use the spoon to catch drips so that there is no batter outside of the cups.

Put the pan back in the oven and ignore them for 15 to 20 minutes.  This is when the magic happens.  They will rise like crazy in the middle 10 minutes. Think souffle.

After 15 minutes look through the window to check on your puds.  If they have risen and are brown on top they are done.  If they have risen but are not brown leave them in for a few more minutes.  If they haven't risen then you are not having Yorkshire Pudding with dinner and should warm some bread or dinner rolls.

11 minutes . . .

If you don't have a window you will have to crack the door (gently) at the 15 minute mark.  As long as you aren't an Orc this should be fine.

15 minutes.

When they come out leave them sit in the muffin pan for 1 minute and then get them to the table.  They will stay warm if you put them in a basket/bowl and cover with a towel.  If you eat them right away they will have an uncomfortable amount of steam emanating from them. Watch your face!

If there is a lot of oil left over in your pan it means that you used too much.  Excess oil will cause some of them to collapse because of the weight of the oil on top.

Too much oil afterwards. No wonder some collapsed.

If you aren't eating these with a meal then sprinkle a little salt on top or spread some butter on them.

Key Ideas:

• Hot oil meets cool batter.
• No batter on the lips of the pan maximizes the chance of an even rise.
• Don't molest them for 15 minutes.
• The less you fill the cups, the taller they will puff (counter-intuitive)
• If you can use beef drippings with the oil you will be a hero.

Baked (Roasted?) Asparagus

Pee minus 15 minutes...

Asparagus is my favorite green vegetable.  I love the fact that you can time your digestion with it.  Let's not get into a scientific discussion about why some people can smell the asparagus smell and some can't let's just eat!

You'll need;

• A bunch of green asparagus (or other green, skinny vegetable)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil (1 if you are on a diet)
• Coarse kosher salt
• Coarse ground black pepper
• 2 tsp crushed red pepper. (I hope you aren't using the pizza packets . . .)
• A cookie sheet.

Rinse your asparagus and pat dry.

Cut the "woody" dead ends off.

Lay the asparagus parallel on the cookie sheet and drizzle the oil all over.

Roll the asparagus to coat each spear in a little oil.  You can absorb away excess oil with a paper towel.

Sprinkle the salt, pepper and red pepper over the whole shebang.

Preheat to 400F (or so, this isn't rocket surgery).

Put the sheet in the oven for about 8 minutes for the normal, thick spears and more like 6 for the skinny ones.

Pull them out and get them off the cookie sheet.  They will still cook a bit due to the hot oil, but we don't want any help with that.

The asparagus should be soft but not limp.  Take note of the texture when you eat it so you can adjust the time to match your oven.

I love this method because it can be done while you are cooking various other things or during the rest period of a main dish protein.  I have also used flavored olive oils and it was interesting, but not enough to make me change the recipe.

Mashed Potatoes

Get out of the way!  Spud coming through!

What I mean by that is that I think most people make mashed potatoes like they hate potatoes and have to cover up the flavor.  I'd like to taste and feel a bit of potato, thank you.

To that end I rarely add milk to my potatoes, just salted butter, pepper and sometimes a little salt.  I also don't boil them to mush or over mash them.  I think whipped potatoes are just a starch bomb that my gut doesn't need right after a big steak. Robert Irvine agrees.

You'll need;

• 5 Russet potatoes (though Yukon Gold are good too)
• 1.5 stick of salted butter
• Pepper (white?) and salt to taste
• a big pot
• a sturdy potato masher
• a wooden spoon 

So this is 6 potatoes. I added more butter to compensate.

Peel the potatoes and dig out any of the eyes.  Don't worry, it's not Oedipal.

Slice the potatoes into quarters or eighths.  I don't like to go smaller, but Alton Brown does.

Generously salt your water and get it boiling.

Add the potatoes and boil for 20-30 minutes.  The boil should be a gentle one, we want to avoid the potatoes banging into each other and breaking up.

They are done when a paring knife goes in halfway with no effort.  Start testing before 20 minutes.

Drain the potatoes and let them drip in the colander while you put the pot back on the heat to dry it out.

When the pot is dry turn off the heat and get the potatoes back in.  Why dirty another dish when you can mash in this pot.  Plus it is hot and will dry the potatoes some more.

Mash them briefly until there are no more big chunks of potato.  This is the first mash so leave it chunky.

From this . . .

. . . to this.

Add the butter (preferably cut into pats) and mash again until the butter is incorporated.  It should still be a bit coarse for your liking.

Now add some seasoning.  Switch to a spoon and stir/fold the potatoes.  Taste and adjust.  Stay light on the salt since people will probably put butter/gravy on the taters.

I use white pepper to preserve the look of the potatoes.  Just use less.

Stir a little more but leave the potatoes a bit coarser than your grandmother did.  The coarse grain of the potatoes traps air and makes the potato flavor jump.  It also reduces the gut-bomb that I alluded to earlier.

If you need to tame the potatoes add more butter, not milk.  Adding cheese is cheating (and the courts have roundly sided with me on this).  Garnish with finely chopped chives.  No one eats parsley.

I keep them warm in a warm oven.