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