Roasted New Potatoes

Some things seem so easy that they don’t even need writing down–if you already know how to do them, that is. But I will be the first to raise my hand and say that in my old life, my menu planning just didn’t involve basic side dishes. I mostly preferred to make a complex pasta dish that incorporated multiple food groups in one pot. A few of those recipes survived the changeover, and perhaps more will in the future. But in the meantime, I had to get food on the table every night, and that meant a return to some basics that I had never visited in the first place.

And what could be more basic than the humble potato? I love the little red ones, they’re so cute. Just cut them in half, maybe quarters for the bigger ones, and toss them with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Normally you would see my little oil spigot thing, but somehow it didn’t make it into the frame. Just imagine there’s a thin stream of oil about to hit these apples of the earth.

That’s what they call potatoes in French, you know: pommes de terre, or “apples of the Earth.” In Spanish it’s patata, but that’s not nearly as interesting. Oh look, we’re oiling a sheet of foil on a baking pan up there. I think that’s what, sunflower oil? I don’t even remember; I play pretty fast and loose with my oils.

Salt them generously. How generously is up to you, but I like it pretty generous. Then again, you can always add more after they’re cooked, so if you want to stay on the safe side, that’s okay too.

Then sprinkle them with rosemary, and put them in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. I wish I could tell you an actual measurement of how much rosemary to use, but I just keep sprinkling until it looks right. I determined what “right” was by the highly scientific method of “remembering what those new potatoes looked like at that one wedding buffet I went to.”

That’s how you know this is an easy dish, by the way: anything that can sit in a chafing dish for an hour and still taste good by the time you get to the front of the line must be impossible to ruin. So if they have to sit in the oven a little longer, or if you’re cooking something else at a different temperature and you want to cook the potatoes at the same time, don’t sweat it. You can throw them in at pretty much any temperature, and just pull them out when they’re starting to brown on the edges, and they’ll be good.

Happy Eating!

Roasted New Potatoes

Small red new potatoes
olive oil
salt
rosemary