Earlier this month, in The
Washington Post’s “Cooking Off the Cuff,” I wrote about a nice way of
cooking potatoes – here.
In that posting I warned, “I don’t recommend doing this with potatoes that are
less firm than my Russian bananas [fingerlings]. Something like a russet potato
cut into chunks would too readily fall apart, not that it wouldn’t taste good.”
Well, a couple of nights ago I ignored my own sage advice
and took a chance: I used russets for what could have been a nice variation on
that dish. I’d been to the farmers’ market and bought some of that charming
spring garlic whose pearly white cloves have not yet formed the papery skins
that separate them in the mature heads. I thought it would be lovely quartered
and butter-glazed along with potatoes.
Those firm-fleshed fingerlings were no longer available, and
I stubbornly went forward with the plan using cut-up russets from the supermarket,
to which I added the garlic heads, quartered, and then cooked with chicken
stock, butter and rosemary.
As I’d known perfectly well, the potatoes couldn’t stand up
to this treatment; they were just too fragile by the time they were tender. So
I took a fork and mashed everything up, coarsely. It looked like hell, but
tasted fine. I can’t say I was disappointed, because I knew just what was going
to happen. But I felt silly for having hoped, even for a moment, that my
original advice had been over-cautious.
Here’s what I ought to have done: I should have glazed the
garlic separately, then added it to potatoes I’d cooked in a different way.
Next time, perhaps I’ll pay attention to my own warnings.
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