This story originally appeared in The Orange County Register.

The homely russet potato is not much to look at — especially when you compare it to the swirling architectural beauty of a head of Romanesco broccoli, or the seductive lipstick-red of a radish. But the russet’s allure lies beneath its skin: a creamy, unblemished flesh so versatile, it can transform into a bevy of appetizing eats using just about any cooking method invented.

Yes, these grubby little tubers clean up real nice.

One of my favorite russet makeovers is the galette, where potatoes take a cue from the Romanesco’s structural swirl. To make a galette, potatoes are cut into thin slices, then arranged in an overlapping spiral to form a circular tart. Between potato layers, you can use your imagination to add aromatics, herbs and cheese to flavor. I love the combination of onions, garlic and rosemary — it’s a fragrant classic that never disappoints in a potato dish. This combo also works well if you plan to serve the galette with meaty main courses like beef and lamb.

Now, it’s true that traditional galettes are prepared with a pastry crust, but this isn’t necessary when you’re using russet potatoes. When the galette is baked, the potato slices act as both crust and filling — the top and bottom layers crisp and brown into a crust all its own, while the galette’s center remains pillowy and light. After baking, the galette is inverted to showcase a smooth, even surface of golden potato goodness. (And I promise, inverting it is a lot easier than you may think.)

There are a few methods for making a potato galette, but the breeziest is baking with a nonstick cookie sheet. The sheet acts as a blank, wide canvas for you to create your masterpiece, and the Teflon coating keeps individual potato slices from sticking to the sheet when you eventually flip the galette over onto a serving plate.

This is also a recipe where you can brush up your knife skills. Making thin, wispy potato slices may take a bit of patience if you’re a newbie, but the end result is well worth it. And don’t worry if your slices are uneven or slivered. You can arrange slices to mask these imperfections – but only if you want. In my experience, the flawed, rustic galettes are the best ones. (more…)

My apologies for the light posting today. I can barely keep my eyes open — let alone attempt to say something with wit — because of all the meds I’m on right now. All I can offer you is this salad, and if my memory serves me well, it was a good one at that.

This peppery salad is the last thing I could taste before a nasty sinus infection set in and rendered my taste buds useless. But it could have been worse. The last thing I ate could have been something awful, like Brussels sprouts or a bowl of frozen peas. I thank my lucky stars.

It’s been a few days and I still can’t taste anything, but the memory of this simple salad still lives on. I loved the crouton-sized roasted sweet potatoes, which lent a sunny vibe to an otherwise wintery salad. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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I have in my kitchen what one local chef tells me is “the kiss of death.”

“An electric range?” she asks. “How do you ever get anything done with one of those contraptions?”

Well, I told her, it’s getting easier. But it’s still an uphill battle.

Moving from my previous apartment meant leaving the luxury and reliable power of gas, where everything cooked evenly and the oven temperature was always spot-on. What a dream that was.

Now I’ve got this shifty nightmare with hardened coils in place of those glowing rings of blue flames.

Simple tasks, like using the broiler to brown things like garlic bread and Croque Monsieur, are super tricky. This broiler gets points for reaching temperature at the drop of a hat, yet it’s one hell of an overachiever, blackening everything in its path within a matter of seconds. How odd that the familiar scent of garlic, butter and bread turns to that other familiar odor of char and carbon the minute you turn your back to the stove. Kiss of death, indeed.

This is why I say thank goodness for blowtorches.

Though one can toast garlic bread without a broiler under normal oven settings, the drama of literally taking matters into your own hands is kind of therapeutic when your counter is lined with pans of blackened oblong shadows of the meal accompaniments they once were.

A blowtorch means angry flames shooting out of your fingertips to match the anger in your heart every time you pull a charred one from the broiler. It means victory.

So maybe I’m not skilled enough for the technology of an electric range yet, and maybe I have a bit of an inner pyro. But despite the kiss of death, I do have my garlic bread. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.) (more…)

Simple is just the way to go sometimes.

Like when you’ve spent the last few weeks in meetings with loan officers and real estate agents and all those other folks who are helping you realize a dream of buying a home. It’s too bad we can’t do all of this over dinner, which I’m sure would be better received than the hollow white lights of an office we should have left hours ago. Yes, we would all be happier if we met over dinner.

But because we can’t, I’ll have to compromise with simple dinners that can be made between meetings and work. Spring and summer are the best seasons for these types of speedy dishes mainly because of all the produce at your fingertips. And because everything tastes better in the summer, you can have bruschetta three nights in a row without risking taste-bud fatigue – which is one of the worst kinds of fatigue, in my opinion.

This magic bruschetta, as I’ve been calling it lately, seemed to pave the way for other areas of my life to behave with simplicity. The meetings waned; the paperwork finally done. I found a home. We completed the first day of Escrow yesterday, just in time for my 28th birthday today (this getting older part still hasn’t hit met yet). We get a three day weekend next week, and then I take off for Hawaii. I’ll knock on wood to be safe, but I don’t think that things can get any simpler (and more exciting!) than that.

And aside from being thisclose to owning a slice of the world, the forces at work gave me the best gift of all: my sanity has returned.

Or maybe that’s the result of all the really, really good wine I’ve been drinking lately.

In any case, both reds and whites pair well with this simple bruschetta – one so laden with garlic that it seems to set your mouth on fire. It’s a simple dinner, but that doesn’t mean it’s a simplistic one. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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There’s this story of a famous journalist who started his career at a daily paper in a town so tiny, that there was no real news to write about. I mean, we’re talking daily AP photos of squirrels on skis and a whole lotta bake sale stories.

But he refused to settle for those ho-hum tales. Instead, this guy would throw a dart at a city map that was hanging on his wall, and wherever the dart landed was where he was going to find his next story. It didn’t matter if the dart pierced the middle of an intersection or the corner of an open corn field. He would find a story.

Using that method, he met all kinds of interesting people, and equally interesting stories ensued. Now, he’s a big-deal reporter in a metropolitan city. Bake sales be damned.

I never learned the name of this guy – and that detail alone makes the tale scream fiction over fact. But real or not, it reminds me to think creatively when developing recipes: Pick an ingredient and develop the flavors around it, just as he picked a place and developed a story around it.

The tale also helps when choosing one recipe over another to try. But instead of using the dart method, I close my eyes and mix up all the cookbooks on my office floor, then point a finger at a page. There. Done.

It was a similar situation when I made this Gorgonzola and leek crème brulee. It was one in a handful of recipes that we testers at Leite’s Culinaria had to choose from in order to fulfill our monthly testing duties. I closed my eyes, and with finger poised at the computer screen, I made a selection.

Only, as luck would have it, my fat, sausage-of-a-finger landed on three recipes instead of one. Of course, I thought. Just when this dart method of choosing was proving to be foolproof, this happens.

But fat finger be damned. I made them all.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more)

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Hey all,

Here’s my latest Food 101 column, which appeared today in the print version of The Orange County Register. It’s not online on the paper’s site, so I’ve posted it below. Thanks for reading!

Potatoes to the rescue
The creamy, mashed dish is a smashing success with most any main course.

By CYNTHIA FUREY
Special to the Register

Stories of superheroes and sidekicks have lined the pages of comic books for ages. Though it’s true that quite of few of these superheroes perform their mighty deeds alone, many of them do have help. The same rings true for main courses and sides: Both have lined your dinner table for ages, mightily feeding your friends, family and dinner guests. But unlike superheroes, something seems amiss when a main course appears without accompaniment. Yes, that beef tenderloin is a glorious spectacle on its own, but it would benefit from an equally glorious supporting cast of characters to share the table with.

Enter mashed potatoes, one of those classic sidekicks that work with almost all protein dishes. Dress them up with Parmesan and mash them until they’re silky, and you can serve them with an elegant roast. Add cheddar with potatoes and their skins, and you’ve got a dish you can take to a picnic or barbecue. Every good cook should have at least one mashed potato recipe in their back pocket, at the ready for when you need to fill a vacant slot on your menu.

I call my own recipe Kitchen Sink Mashed Potatoes, because it seems there’s a little bit of everything in them. Now, I must warn you, these mashed potatoes aren’t for the faint of heart, or those who want to fit into their bathing suits this summer. They will stick to your like the Freshmen 15 you gained in college, like the clingy significant other you eventually managed to shake off. The red potatoes in this recipe merely act as a vehicle for butter, cheese and cream. (But in the recipe’s defense, that can also be said for many mashed potato recipes.)

What they do lack in modesty, however, they make up for in flavor. For one, there’s the aforementioned trifecta of ingredients that seem to make everything taste better, while also functioning in the recipe as texture helpers: Butter and heavy cream add creaminess and fluff, while Parmesan cheese gives them a bit of tang. There’s also enough garlic in them that there’s a chance you may still taste them next week. (If you’re not a garlic fan, by all means, scale back on the quantity called for below.) A touch of chicken stock beefs them up.

While the potatoes are cooling it helps to have a mise en place (a French phrase that literally translates to “everything in place” or “putting in place”). Grate your cheese, chop your garlic and measure all liquids and spices and place them around your work area within an arms distance. When the time comes for you to add these ingredients, you won’t have to stop what you’re doing to measure, pour or chop. It helps to have a mise en place with all recipes.

Kitchen Sink Mashed Potatoes call for grated Parmesan cheese, but you can substitute with other Italian hard cheeses like Asiago or Romano, or a blend of all of them. Mild and sharp cheddar cheese will also work well. Red rose potatoes are used because they can be boiled without breaking down (like their Russet siblings). It’s your choice to keep the potato skins on or off.

You can make them a day ahead of time, stored in refrigerator and reheated on the stove in a pot or in the microwave in a bowl. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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In fourth grade summer school, I met a girl named Vanessa, the first person I had ever known with a Spanish accent.

The minute she opened her mouth, her foreign accent trumped my ordinary American one: she was instantly prettier, smarter and funnier than me – and boy, was I jealous. I hated her, yet I still had this strange urge to be her friend. (The term frenemy would be coined almost 20 years later to describe this phenomenon.)

Since I knew not a word of Spanish, I practiced speaking English the Spanish way – Vanessa’s way. “S” sounding words were replaced with a “th”: “Sour Patch Kids” became “Thour Path Kidth.” “Hey Vanessa, push me on the swing” became “Hey Vane-tha, puth me on the thwing.” My heavy American tongue proved useless in producing an enviable accent, and instead, words sounded swollen and lethargic. But as usual, Vanessa would flit about, speaking in that singsong voice of hers, and I swear if we had been in a cartoon there would have been a forest, birds and Disney animals hanging onto her every syllable.

But I would learn that her accent had an Achilles Heel. There was one word she couldn’t really say: “chips.” I laughed the hardest at her expense when she asked to share my bag of potato “ships.”

“Ships?” I would ask incredulously. “You mean chips. Say it again!”
“Ships.”
“Ahahahahahahahaha!” I cackled. “Chips!”
“Ships.”
“Ahahahahahahahaha!”

I tried to make her say the word in front of boys we liked in a desperate, fourth-grade attempt to embarrass her. (In addition to frenemy behavior, the second social lesson I learned that summer was that all was fair in love and war.)

But, as life would have it, my plan backfired. Boys still thought she was charming and lovely, despite the sound of her voice mistaking a popular snack food for a massive watercraft. Soon, everyone was eating ships. It was enough for me to finally give up sabotaging her – and it would be the last lesson I learned that summer: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

I never saw Vanessa again, but I’d like to believe she’s maintained her charming accent and is still eating ships. In fact, if Vanessa were an avid cook who wanted to make her own ships, I wouldn’t expect them to be of the Russet variety. They would be familiar yet foreign. Like these sweet potato chips. They’re familiar enough, but with fresh rosemary plucked from a backyard shrub and a sprinkle of sea salt, they become elegant and extraordinary. Like her accent was.

Click on this link for the recipe, from Leite’s Culinaria.

– Cynthia Furey

Roasting vegetables is great on so many levels: Though they may end up shriveled and wrinkly (I like to call this the “rustic” look), any sugars they contain are caramelized. This intensifies the vegetable’s flavor. Sometimes, I’ll cut carrots into thin, fry-shaped strips, toss them in olive oil and salt and crank up the oven until they’re almost black. The end result is a concentrated and heightened carrot flavor.

For potatoes, I don’t go as extreme, but I do like me a fairly browned spud. My favorite part about them is the crisp, almost leathery skin they develop while roasting. With a slight tug of your teeth, the skin releases a pillowy center, which, in this recipe, is achieved by adding salt before roasting to draw out a small amount of moisture from the potatoes. (Note: The photos in this post are a little less brown than what I normally aim for, for aesthetic purposes.)

ROASTED RED ROSE POTATOES WITH GARLIC AND ROSEMARY

Yield: 6 side servings
Cook’s note: The bigger the baking pan you use, the better. Try not to overcrowd the potatoes, or you risk steaming instead of roasting.

3 pounds red rose potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crushed slightly
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon butter

PROCEDURE:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut potatoes into quarters or small, bite-sized pieces. Place on a large, parchment-lined rimmed baking pan.
2. Drizzle olive oil over potatoes. Add garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper (don’t overdo it; you can always add more after roasting). Using your hands, toss potatoes to coat in olive oil and to distribute garlic and rosemary.
3. Dot potatoes with small pinches of butter.
4. Place baking pan in oven and roast for 25 to 35 minutes, or until potatoes are tender and browned. (I actually like them really browned, so I leave them in there for about 10 to 15 minutes more). Season with salt and pepper, if needed.

Side note: March Madness is a month-long challenge in which I will post Monday through Friday for the entire month. I hope you will humor me in reading!

– Cynthia Furey