Monday, April 22, 2024
Good afternoon!
The Refillery Is Coming For Your Grocery Store Routine [Taste]
When Geopolitics Play Out in a Potato Salad Contest [NYTimes, unlocked]
I’ve got a brisket in the oven, 3 dozen eggs in the fridge, and just said without irony “I could really use a break from bread, anyway” — which means the Passover holiday is set to begin this evening. And what better time than a week when a portion of the population is foregoing various forms of leavening to write a long overdue love letter to one of our favorite vegetables: Potatoes. If you think there’s no way we could fill a newsletter entirely about potatoes, please note that it was difficult to even whittle this list down to 12 (but you can scroll here for the full archive). Below, keep your eyes peeled (sorry) for the root of the matter (aye), the tot of the potato charts (oof), and a fresh starch (whoops) to your potato cravings, which if they were not previously a thing, certainly deserve be now.
But that’s not all! We’ve got an interview with the wonderful Sara Forte of Sprouted Kitchen, whose cookbook Around Our Table: Wholesome Recipes to Feed Your Family and Friends comes out next week and is full of excellent dishes that, I’m just saying, go really well with potatoes.
Cheers!
Deb
My podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, launched two months ago and our fifth episode, out today, is all about Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (and, of course, how everyone but me cuts them wrong.) You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts and I’ve set up a new podcast tab/page where you can keep up on it here, too. We will have new episodes every two Mondays. We’ve been working on this behind the scenes for the last year — I hope you enjoy listening along.
easiest french fries
The best french fries I make at home are also the easiest, thanks to this method which requires no peeling, soaking, twice-frying, deep-fry thermometer or even temperature monitoring. It also uses a fraction of the oil of the classic kind. It really wants us to have a delicious week.
spring salad with new potatoes
One of my favorite things to make and eat isn't a potato salad, per se, but a salad *with* potatoes. This one is full of bright spring vegetables with a punchy (mayo-free) dressing and it's perfect wherever you take it.
potatoes anna
The cover dish of Smitten Kitchen Every Day has deeply bronzed and crisp edges and a baked-just-so center, infused with salty cheese and a warming kick of pepper, and a very familiar name.
baked potato soup
Everything awesome about baked potatoes in a warm, hearty bowl. Top with everything you'd load on a spud, or nothing at all. It works either way.
hash brown patties
The perfect homemade hash brown patty: crisp and so fuss-free, it's almost baffling. This is my absolutely favorite raft for an egg, or the base of a salad-y lunchtime avocado "toast" -- I hope you're inspired!
sausage and potato roast with arugula
A simple but exceptional sausage and potato roast that gets a lift from roasted shallots and a heap of peppery arugula, an easy sheet pan meal for busy days.
tortilla de patatas
One of my favorite foods on earth is a tortilla de patatas, an olive oil-rich omelet with slow-cooked potatoes and onion. It's perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner; it's good cold, warm, or room temperature. Serve with a squiggle of aioli and a crisp salad and cross your fingers with me that this spring-like weather is here to stay.
potato vareniki
Potato vareniki (the Ukrainian cousin of pierogi) are slippery and light where you’d expect heaviness, uplifting instead of nap-inducing and, in my opinion, the absolute highest calling of carbs-wrapped-in-carbs. This recipe comes by way of Bonnie Morales at Kachka restaurant in Portland, and in pre-pandemic times, she came over to my tiny kitchen to show me how to make them -- it was such a treat.
twice baked potatoes with kale
Halfway between all pies and cookies, all the time, and kale juice on the indulgence-to-austerity scale are twice baked potatoes with all of the good stuff (cheese, sour cream) plus an entire bundle of greens, which totally makes it balanced.
spiced cauliflower and potatoes
Aloo gobi (spiced potatoes and cauliflower) is one of my favorite vegetable dishes, here with extra char from a sheet pan then finished on the stove. It comes out perfectly every time. (Trust me, I've been making it for over 17 years.)
tomato-glazed meatloaves with brown butter mashed potatoes
These meatloaves fight drab stereotypes in a few ways: They’re formed into serving-sized (and almost cute) "loaves", the vegetables are minced, the tomato glaze is thick and unforgettable, and those potatoes? They'll ruin you for all other mashes.
crispy crumbled potatoes
Every craggy edge and erratic angle of these restaurant-style potato nuggets get perfectly browned and transcendently crunchy with this cooking technique, which could not be simpler. I hope they make all of your brunch hopes and dreams come true.
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think you’d love them all. Wondering what you might cook from Smitten Kitchen Keepers now that spring is finally here? I thought you’d never ask! Try the sesame asparagus and carrot chop, double shallot egg salad, leek and brie galette, toasted ricotta gnocchi with pistachio pesto, and fettuccine with white ragu. To finish, I recommend the bee sting bars, mango curd tart, and/or the carrot cake with brown butter and no clutter. Were you looking for a list of all the recipes in each of my cookbooks? I’ve added these in a separate page and hope it makes it easier for you to find everything you want to cook.
AN INTERVIEW WITH SARA FORTE
My shelves are full of wonderful cookbooks I don’t get to talk about enough, so I’ve added this section so you can get to know the cool people behind them. Today we're chatting with Sara Forte of Sprouted Kitchen. Her cookbook Around Our Table: Wholesome Recipes to Feed Your Family and Friends comes out next Tuesday, 4/30.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
I have been writing recipes for 15 years, but my cooking changed when I had kids - both in available time for shopping and prep, and what my wee people were interested in eating. I was no longer making special trips for one ingredient and refused to make separate meals, only different iterations of the same thing. At the same time, we have people over often, try to eat produce heavy meals, we have a few dietary issues under one roof (reflected in a good number of gluten free and dairy free notes and recipes) - and I really wanted to create a collection of recipes and inspiring photos that felt like that elusive space between what kids may (albeit subjective!) eat and what you'd serve guests. It's tacos and bowls and soups and easy baked goods and lots of cornerstone sauces that go with quick protein and veggies. It's the way we are eating at my house these days, from the mundane to the special moments.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
THE Veggie Burger. I have made so many iterations of this recipe, trying to trim extra ingredients that may not be necessary but also getting the patties to not taste like straight bean mush. It is not pretending to be meat - they are tender and textured and like you all know from Deb's recipes, no step is in vain here. Are they quick? Eh...no, but worth it! They do have some required condiments, and we ironically like them with crispy bacon, but these are a messy winner of a meal.
3. What recipe is so low-effort, high-reward that it's worth cooking for dinner tonight, even if we're tired and don't want to cook?
The Roasted Cauliflower and Chorizo Pasta with Winter Pesto and it does work year round! I encourage reading the recipe in advance, because what looks like lots of steps and ingredients can be layered to take you 35ish minutes which is nearly the best I can do for a meal I am proud of. Get the roasted cauliflower and pasta water going, make the pesto while you're waiting for the sheet pan situation and toss it all together. It is rich but not heavy and includes enough veggies to feel like you hit all the boxes in one dish!
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
With cooking in general, I wish people would trust their instincts more. I do believe that kitchen confidence comes from experience and trial and error but I also find that if you eat food, cooking is more intuitive than one thinks. Get in there! You think a change in a recipe would be good? Try it! Also, a recipe takes the longest to make the first time, and you'll be faster after that when you aren't reading along so closely. So make it twice before you decide it's too much fuss. You could make any of these recipes on a weeknight if you read through ahead of time. Lastly, always add sauce!
Thank you, Sara! You can preorder Around Our Table right here.
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most — yes including the new braiser! For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
See you next week!