Well, I must be on a roll now (perhaps a nice ciabatta).  When I put up my Pork and Onion Roast recipe (See Easy Pork and Onion Roast ), I also made these potatoes to sop up the sauce.

Like all of my recipes, this is more of a technique than a recipe. The technique is something that I found in a recipe for Peruvian style potatoes many years ago and then promptly forgot (my wife can roll her eyes here – I’m always forgetting stuff. I think. I’ll ask her – she’ll remember.)

The technique of covering potatoes in water and boiling it off does two things – first it seasons the potato all the way through and second it always cooks it to a perfect texture.

Ingredients:

• About 1 ½ pounds baby potatoes
• 1 Lemon, Juiced
• About 1 tsp salt.
• Optional – herbs, seasonings, etc.
• Olive Oil

Basic Recipe

Step 1: Boil the heck outta the potatoes

Note – you have a lot of room to play around here. For example, if you only put salt, you’ll end up with a salt-powdered little gem that’s great by itself.  I’ve done it with chile powder, paprika, garlic, you name it.

Put in cold water until it barely covers the potatoes.

Put it on high heat and let it boil off the water.  I like to turn them over about halfway through. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

Note – this can be done wwwaaaayyyyyy ahead if you like.  Just finish them up before guests arrive.

Step 2: Finish The Potatoes

Method 1: Fry them (as shown here)

Method 2: Roast Them (as shown in the variation below)

A 400-degree oven would do the trick. If you wanted to cut them in half or do something chef-y, now’s the time.

Method 3: Serve Them As Is

Really, these are good just as they are.

Variation with Quartered Russet Potatoes.

So, I’ve done the same thing with whole potatoes.

Peel and quarter 3-4 potatoes.  Put them in the pot. In this version, I used salt, pepper and paprika.

With russets, I would suggest that you only cook them until they are just getting soft. By this I mean poke it with a knife and if it feels good it is good (fully boiled russets tend to disintegrate). This is named after the famous Italian Alfredo “Al” Dente, who taught people to hurl their pasta at the wall for no apparent reason.