Prime Cuts

This is a truly simple yet impressive side dish which produces a crispy, smoky, slightly charred exterior unlike any potato you have eaten before.   I can honestly say that this is my favorite potato side dish…or at least one of my top three!

Griddled Smashed Red Potatoes Recipe

Ingredients

1 pint small round red potatoes
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Vegetable oil for cooking
Shaved sea salt (or the fanciest salt you can find, preferably slightly coarser than kosher salt)
Fresh ground black pepper
Extra Virgin olive oil for serving

Special Equipment

Cast iron griddle or pan

Preparation

Put the cleaned red potatoes in a large saucepan and add the red wine vinegar, a pinch of table salt, a dash of vegetable oil, and enough cold water to cover.  Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium and cook at a low boil until fork tender.  Just before you remove your potatoes from the water you should begin heating your griddle to low/medium for this application – you will want to have your pan heated for a solid 10 minutes before you begin cooking on it.

Once your potatoes are fork tender, drain them in a colander, do not rinse and do not allow them to cool.  For this step in the recipe you must work somewhat quickly while the potatoes are still warm, if allowed to cool they will crumble and separate instead of smashing and maintaining their structural integrity.  Place a clean paper towel on your work surface, place a potato on top and with another paper towel and the palm of your hand with steady, slow, firmness press down and gently smash the potato to an even thickness roughly ¼” to ½”.  Place all your smashed potatoes on a separate tray.

To crisp the potatoes, oil them with vegetable oil and add them to the cast iron pan being careful not to crowd, working in batches. Cook for approximately 5 minutes on the first side or until slightly charred and crisped. Then carefully flip using a spatula or putty knife and cook for 2-3 minutes on the second side (since the potatoes have been heated the second side won’t take as long).  Remove to a separate tray and keep warm until all potatoes have been griddle crisped.

To finish I drizzle with a good extra virgin olive oil and lightly season with shaved sea salt and just a hint of freshly ground black pepper. Carefully flip the griddled potatoes and drizzle and season the second side as well. As one of my mentors told me a long time ago: “Good food is seasoned, great food is seasoned thoroughly.”

In my opinion these potatoes do not need any garnish, sauce, or additional seasoning.  They go perfectly with grilled or roasted meats and are well worth the extra trouble and attention to detail it takes to produce the “just right” amount of char.

Enjoy!

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For this post I want to address a question received by one of our readers regarding the proper seasoning and care of cast iron cooking equipment. But before I provide my answer I must take the time to reference the cookbook that really got me into cast iron cooking in the first place, Seven Fires, Grilling the Argentine Way, written by Argentina’s most famous chef Francis Mallmann.  Throughout this book full of wonderful recipes there are many side notes, quotes, and chef tips related to all things having to do with wood-fire cooking.  One of these particular side notes is Chef Mallmann’s perspective on proper care and seasoning of cast iron pans and it is so perfect that I want to share it for this post.

While reading this quotation keep in mind that Chef Mallmann has multiple restaurants and cooks more in cast iron than anyone you know or ever will know.  However, the general idea and romance of cast iron cooking is absolutely there, so check it out, and then read my more practical approach.  In the end do whatever you feel is best for your personal style of cooking.

“I depend on cast iron, and I respect it, but I don’t go through the elaborate steps that some aficionados do when cleaning it. I know that many people never wash their cast-iron pans with soap and water, scouring them instead with coarse salt, then oiling the pans to develop a nonstick patina that’s equal to Teflon. I’m not one of them. I find that a pan that is oil-seasoned often smokes while it’s heating up; I prefer to oil my ingredients just before putting them on to cook. As far as cleaning off the sticky bits, pouring boiling water into a pan or dousing a very hot pan or skillet with a ladleful of warm water shocks them so you can easily scrape them off with a big spoon, spatula, or-my favorite chapa tool- a wide putty knife (the kind used by housepainters and plasterers).

I confess that my pans often show rust and some even crack from time to time but I just chalk that up to paying my dues.”

My personal philosophy regarding proper care and seasoning of cast iron boils down to one basic philosophy: don’t wash it, instead wipe it down thoroughly with a clean dry towel while the pan is still hot after each use.  The resulting temperature of cooking with a cast iron pan on medium/high heat will sanitize it thoroughly and the same heat will loosen any of those aforementioned “sticky bits” so that they can be easily removed with your spatula prior to wipe down.

When you purchase a new cast iron skillet or pan what I recommend you do is apply a teaspoon or two of vegetable oil (not olive oil as it can not stand up to the same level of heat that vegetable oil can) to your pan and with a clean paper towel rub it into the entire surface area of the pan (both sides). Really take your time and massage the oil into the cast iron until the whole thing is evenly saturated.  Now what you need to do is add some heat.  This is a great time to see how your pan heats up.  Start at medium heat for about 10 minutes, notice if your pan smokes, how hot it feels, how a drop of water sizzles on it, etc.  Next increase the heat to medium/high and let sit for another 10 minutes.  What you have now essentially done is fired on your new pan’s nonstickiness!  Let the pan cool somewhat, but while still warm, carefully wipe the entire pan thoroughly with a clean kitchen towel.  You have now successfully seasoned your cast iron and will not need to do it again.

While I do oil season my pans unlike Chef Mallmann, I do agree that the initial best way to keep food from sticking (even in a seasoned pan) is to oil your ingredients prior to adding them to a hot pan, and it is something that I do every time I cook.

To summarize what you must do to keep your cast iron pan performing to its utmost potential thoroughly scrape down and then while still warm, wipe your pan clean after each use.  Personally, I do not feel that water is needed to clean these pans at all, but it can be helpful if you have an extreme case of “sticky bits”.  Regular practicing of these few steps will help your cast iron maintain its wonderful non-stick properties for as long as you own it!

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Photo Credit: cinnachick

Ok, so, I know I have been on a serious hiatus from my writing on Prime Cuts but I am coming out of hibernation and am gearing up to hit you guys with a slew of fresh info pertaining to the meat-centric way that I cook food. I had been racking my brain and trying to come up with the perfect topic for my first post back and then it hit me, I should share the rustic cooking method that I have been working on perfecting over the last year.

This cooking medium/method has really changed the way I think about food: and is best explained in two short words: cast iron. I purchased a flat surfaced cast iron griddle last Fall and since doing so, I have tried cooking just about every food imaginable on it. With this post I hope to spark some cast iron interest in you and help you key in on points that will help you when experimenting with your griddle techniques.

I think most of us have stashed away somewhere in our house, a dusty old heavy cast iron skillet which we may not have used in ages (or ever). But this should truly not be the case. Cast iron should be a regularly utilized part of all our cooking routines. Cast iron heats up evenly, retains its temperature for a really long time, and when seasoned properly is nearly stick proof. This last characteristic is what has been so crucial to me lately. When you can get food to cook evenly at high heat without sticking to the cooking medium, you allow yourself an amazing range of browning/searing/charring that would simply not be possible with other conventional cooking surfaces.

In Argentine cuisine next to the wood burning grill (Parrillia) the cast iron griddle (Chapa) is perhaps the most important cooking surface in the kitchen. This is what prompted me to really start getting comfortable with my cast iron griddle and after much practice I can honestly say that I am able to sear just about any food on my chapa and create the perfect amount of char. The advice I would offer to any new cast iron cookers is to practice cooking at medium/high heat and really get comfortable working at this temperature. Get to know the speed at which different foods cook and note the resulting amount of char produced. You will need to keep a mental record of how everything chars but as a general rule of thumb, remember that the higher the sugar content/the quicker and darker the resulting char will be.

My personal recommendation for a cast iron griddle is something flat with a good amount of surface area such as one from Lodge Cast Iron which has two surface styles and fits securely on most modern stovetops. But by all means if you already have a cast iron pan hiding in your house, use it before you buy anything new. Practice getting your sear down in small batches and then if you still need to upgrade, you will have a good idea of exactly the griddle size and style you are looking for.

In my restaurant I use my griddle the gaucho way: directly on top of my wood fire. However you can replicate this traditional method using your gas or electric stovetop and often with more consistent results as stovetops heat more evenly than a wood fire. Cast iron will take a while to heat up, so at med/high give it a good 5 minutes pre-heating time if using a gas stove and 10 minutes if using electric. Before adding any food to your griddle, place a drop of water on the griddle. The water should spatter and evaporate almost instantly and your griddle should be just about smoking. When this ideal temp is reached carefully apply a thin layer of vegetable oil to the griddle (watch out for flare ups) and begin searing away, while always being careful not to over crowd the cooking surface.

As for getting the food off of the griddle, my personal suggestion is to invest in a new metal putty knife or paint scraper with a flat flexible scraping surface. You want a tool that will make even contact with the cast iron surface and then cleanly get under the food and enable you to best flip and remove items from your griddle without disrupting the charred surface you have worked so diligently to create. Practice and experimentation will be your biggest allies when cooking with cast iron. But remember that any food that can be pan seared, fried, or grilled can just as easily be griddle/seared, and what a difference in both appearance and flavor it makes!

Coming up in my next post, my two favorite griddled foods: Provoleta a.k.a. charred-aged provolone with oregano and tomatoes and smashed griddled red potatoes with olive oil and sea salt!

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Photo Credit: buchman