Smashed New Potatoes

Freshfield Farm is selling baby potatoes, delicious for salads, or steamed and daubed with butter and parsley. Here’s a different way to cook them. These small potatoes—they have to be small– are cooked and smashed into jagged discs, then roasted to a crisp. Like fries, you’ll want to eat them with steak and salad. Like fries, you may want to eat them on their own. For 2-3 people, easily doubled.

Smashed New Potatoes.

6 small new potatoes, skins on, washed

salt and pepper

about 1 ½ Tbs. peanut oil, or other neutral oil

Preheat oven to 450 F. Cook potatoes in gently boiling, well salted water, until just tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and dry. Briefly warm a baking sheet or shallow tin in the hot oven and brush bottom with a teaspoon or so of oil. One at a time, put a potato on the sheet, and gently smash top to split the skin and splay the edges, without actually smashing the potato apart. You can do this with a potato masher or the bottom of a glass (which lets you see what you’re doing.) Flatten each potato down to about half an inch. Arrange potatoes on the sheet so there’s space between them and brush them with more oil, about 2 teaspoons. Roast at the top of the very hot oven for 25 minutes or until the potatoes are crispy and golden. Check them occasionally as they cook and when you see the potatoes start to dry and crisp, brush over a final teaspoon or so of oil, season with salt and pepper, and return to the oven to finish. The potatoes are done when they look irresistibly crunchy.