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- Prep 20min
- Total30min
- Servings8
Easy, salted potatoes with warm butter for dipping.MORE+LESS-
Ingredients
4
pounds small potatoes, such as baby Yukon gold (I used only the 1-pound bag of tiny potatoes)
2-1/4 cups kosher salt (I reduced this by a fourth)
1
stick unsalted butter (I reduced this by a fourth)
Steps
Hide Images
1
Put the potatoes, 8 cups of water and the salt in a large pan. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat t medium and simmer until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 30 minutes. (Mine only took 5 minutes because the potatoes were itty bitty).
2
Drain the potatoes in a colander and shake to remove excess water. Let the skins dry in the colander so that some of salt crystallizes.
3
Meanwhile, put the butter in a microwaveable-safe bowl and microwave until melted. Serve the potatoes hot with the butter for dipping.
Nutrition Information
No nutrition information available for this recipeSalt Potatoes!
Here in Central New York, you know it's summer once grocery stores start breaking out the Salt Potatoes. These little salty gems are a staple at picnics, clambakes and really any outdoor gathering you can think of. Typically served alongside the quintessential selection of ribs, chicken, corn-on-the-cob, and of course Hoffman hot dogs and coneys.
Never heard of 'em? Here's some backstory:
During the 1800s, Irish salt miners in Syracuse, NY would bring a bag of small, unpeeled, substandard potatoes to work each day. At lunch time, they would boil the potatoes in the salt brine - nothing like convenience, eh?
Thanks to local entrepreneur John Hinerwadel, by 1900 these potatoes had become a staple at clambakes thanks to their starchy goodness and affordable preparation.
For those of you not fortunate enough to live in the great upstate where you can head over to your local market and pick up a bag of Hinerwadels salt potatoes, then here's a simplified recipe using ingredients you should be able to find no matter where you're located.
Note: Try not to gasp in horror at the amount of salt vs. amount of potatoes. I mean, you are on a salt company website after all. but really, don't skimp on the salt out of fear. I promise, it just won't be the same.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 pound “new” potatoes (I prefer red, but white are fine, just make sure you get the small ones)
- 1/2 cup Kosher salt
- Lots-o-butter
DIRECTIONS:
Combine the potatoes, salt, and enough water to completely cover the potatoes, then add a little more (water should cover potatoes by about 2 inches) in a large pot. Bring to a boil and continue boiling until they become a bit soft and can be easily pierced with a fork - 10-20 minutes depending on potatoes.
They are done when soft, but firm. Do not cut or pierce potatoes - this will make them absorb the salt water and get soggy.
Drain and let dry until you see a white film covering the potatoes - this is the salt doing its job.
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Back in the 19th century though, the brine was boiling pretty much 'round the clock. Local legend has it that salt potatoes came about when workers started cooking potatoes in the brine that was brought up from underground. Given that a large percentage of the immigrants in the area were of Irish origin, this makes particularly good sense. The high salinity in the brine yielded a boiled potato far saltier and of more interesting flavor than others—the salt at that high a level penetrates all the way into to the center, so this isn't just a standard lightly salted boiled potato, and it has a texture that's a bit more akin to a baked potato, I think.
I'm a novice salt potato maker, not an expert, so take everything I say here with, sorry, a large grain of you know what. I heard about them first from Kim Huffman, a long-time customer here who comes to town regularly but lives up in that area. She wrote me this spring: "The potatoes are served all over around here. I can't tell you how many roadside chicken bbq's I've been to that have them." "Another interesting aspect of cooking them," she added, "is that way is that by saturating the potato it stays whole and firm and doesn't become flinty or crumbly as typical." To convey the full salt potato experience, she added, "Of course a ladle of melted butter over 3 or 4 (or more!) golf ball-sized potatoes is essential."
I'm sure some upstate New York natives will be able to add to my mix, but basically you cook new potatoes—which are out in the market here en masse this month—in very salty water. I don't mean water where you add a bit more salt than you usually do. I mean like where you have about two quarts of water dosed up with over a pound of salt to cook a couple of pounds of new potatoes. There are various recipes with varied salt to spuds to water ratios out there but they all seem to be roughly at that level. I'm not the science super hero, but from what I know basically, as Kim said above, one wants to oversaturate the water with salt. Which means that you'll be adding so much of it to the water that the salt won't actually all dissolve. (I did see some recipes for "Low-Salt Salt Potatoes" but . . . seriously. . . .) One of the keys of the cooking seems to be to let the potatoes rest on a dry cloth for a few minutes after you take them, already cooked 'til they're tender, from the hot salt water. While the spuds are setting up, a sort of "frosting" of salt will solidify on the surface of the skin, looking a bit like frosted (sugared) grapes if you happen to ever have seen those. Once they've rested for a minute or two you serve them with a dish of melted butter for dunking, and eat.
As for the history, here's an 1899 newspaper report that kvells lovingly about this local specialty. You'll see that these are no recent trendy addition to upstate New York eating. Going back to written records from the Syracuse Sunday Herald from over a century ago (Sunday, 5 March 1899. Page 26 to be exact):
Of all the Bohemian resorts in the city there is but one that is distinctly a product of Syracuse. For sixteen years it has flourished in Wolf Street, and the Brothers Keeffe, who are its proprietors, are almost as well known throughout the country as was "Nick" Enzel of New York and his famous beefsteak.
The salt potatoes of Syracuse rank with the baked beans of Boston, the terrapin of Baltimore, the scrapple of Philadelphia and the frankfurters of Milwaukee. They were born with the salt industry of the city. In the immense iron kettles in which the brine was slowly boiled into salt, the urchins of the First ward prepared feasts for a king. A few potatoes, a few ears of corn, access to a salt kettle and a little patience were the only requirements.
The corn and potatoes were dropped into the kettle, a wait of half an hour would bring a rich reward to the youthful epicures. Potatoes, mealy and bursting through their skins, with the salt clinging to them in particles that shone like miniature diamonds, tickled the palate in a meal that was not to be despised.
The Keeffe brothers in their younger days boiled potatoes in the old salt kettles. When they were older and added a barroom to the queer little old grocery shop of which they were proprietors, they bethought themselves of the salt potatoes of their boyhood, and salt potatoes formed the entire bill of fare of the lunch which they served with the foaming beer.
Salt potatoes were popular with the public, and a Syracusan who entertains a stranger without giving him a chance at the delicious delicacy is lacking in some of the fine points of hospitality.
The saloon where they are served isn't much in the way of a luxurious drinking place. A plain little bar takes up one side of the small room, whose sawdust floor leads through a door into a room beyond, where a table placed among the kegs and barrels of liquers [Ed. sic] makes up the furnishings of the Cafe Keeffe.
Today it's apparently quite common to buy bags of "salt potatoes" where they pack the right amount of salt into packets stuck into each bag of potatoes to make it easier for the home cook. I've heard tell that they're typically sold at country fairs with little wooden folks to spear them with. They're typically served with a lot of melted butter, into which the potatoes are dipped, which, to my mind, makes them a very poor inland man's version of lobster, or maybe a sort of upstate New York version of Raclette. Better butter is of course a good way to go—I'd use the Kerrygold Irish cultured butter (that's the one in the silver foil) in deference to the contribution of the Irish salt workers. And because it's very, very good.
Syracuse Salt Potatoes - Recipes
Not only is this Syracuse salt potatoes recipe one of the most delicious ways to cook baby spuds, it’s also one of the most interesting. I generally don’t like when people watch me cook their food, you know, in case anything gets dropped (#5secondrule), but these are kind of fun to do in front of guests just to see that look of shock in their eyes, as you dump in all that salt. Amazingly, only a small amount of salt gets inside the potatoes, and by “small amount,” I mean “perfect amount.”
This recipe really takes the guesswork out of seasoning. Of course, I could go into all the science behind why these don’t absorb too much salt, but that would mean having to learn it first, and then figure out how to explain it, which sounds like an awful lot of work. Instead, I’ll let my intrepid readers take wild guesses.
39 comments:
These make the most amazing home fries.
What a terrible, terrible mistake it was watching this video when I'm trying to lower my carb intake.
Chef John, you are one of my favorite people. I hope my sense of humor grows up to be you some day. Also, your recipes always come out amazing for me. I have never had a bad meal by you. Thanks!
I'm lucky to to be from Syracuse and have these available to me with prepackaged salt and the potatoes. The video definitely did it justice and I have to add how amazing these are during the BBQ season with some corn on the cob. We usually have a bowl of melted butter to served and everyone just dumps it over their potatoes.
Syracuse native here. Since we just got through another big snowstorm, we're not ready for grilling weather yet--and won't be for probably at least a month. I miss me some salt potatoes and steak.
I had no idea you were only allowed to eat this with food grilled outside! Who made that rule? )
I'm assuming we should be using UNSALTED butter?
I'm so interested to learn about these--I've heard of (and made) salt-wrinkled potatoes from the Canary Islands (Papas Arrugadas), which sound exactly the same. Here's what About.com has to say: "Wrinkled potatoes is a typical dish of the Canary Islands, where potatoes have been cultivated since the 1600’s when they were first brought back to Spain by the conquistadores. The residents of the Canary Islands, called carnarios, call them papas - the native American name, while in the rest of Spain they are called patatas. This dish requires only two ingredients - small potatoes, rather than the huge monsters we’ve gotten used to seeing in the supermarkets, and coarse sea salt. Serve with the traditional Canary Islands sauce mojo picon or mojo cilantro as a side dish with fish or meat, or as an appetizer." That mojo cilantro is fantastic with them, by the way.
Ahhh. from the land of the concrete sky)
I do something very similar to my fresh garden green beans. salt heavily, nuke and then cold water bath to rinse, stop the cooking and to keep bright green color. When ready to eat just warm and serve! mmm.
how fun! instead of serving that with melted butter - that just gave me an idea of serving as patatas bravas with a twist. :)
thanks (again), and as always - have a lovely weekend!
Maybe the unique texture and creaminess of the potato comes from the higher boiling temperature of the extra-salty water?
Looking forward to making this for the family.
Could marble-sized potatoes be used, or would they be too salty?
The "Five Second Rule" you mention is real, at least according to this:
http://time.com/23513/the-five-second-rule-is-real-and-works-best-on-carpet/
Apparently carpet is cleaner than tile.
Thanks Chef John! I boiled 2 small red potatoes this way, sliced them into wedges and arranged the wedges around our breakfast pizza featuring sunny-side-up eggs (with kalamata olives, roasted bell pepper and garlic, and mushrooms, all from the olive bar -- love olive bar!) on Wolfgang's dough that I learned from you. Tasty tatos =D
Now pls excuse me, I have to take my dogs for a BIG hike to work off that breakfast hehe
Could you partially cover to keep the salt from getting everywhere?
Hi chef John! These look great. I have a question though. Could it work with olive oil?
I'm greek and the sight of that bowl of melted butter makes me just a bit uncomfortable. Please advise:)
I want to mash these. Is that ok?
I made these with red potatoes, (only small ones I could find) OMH they were yummy! I served them left over ribs and rotisserie chicken. AWESOME!
Hi Chef! Here in Canary Islands we have a very similar dish called "Papas Arrugadas" which means "wrinkled potatoes". You boil new potatoes with lots of salt and after draining you put them again on the heat and cover with a tea towel until the wrinkles appear all over the potatoes, this makes the texture really special.
We eat them with a sauce called Mojo (red or green) and the combination is perfect! you would love this spicy sauce.
Here you have the Mojo recipe :) http://www.food.com/recipe/mojo-picon-garlic-sauce-31699
Former Syracuse resident here. I'm sadly now a Texan, but I try to represent my hometown wherever possible. For one, my house is all Stickley furniture, all the time. And, guess who wins the NCAA tournament in my bracket every single year? The Orangemen, that's who. This recipe is another great Syracuse thing I can use to impress/annoy my Texan friends. To appease them, I will probably serve this alongside a gigantic medium rare steak of some kind. :-)
HOLY MAGOLY!! Made these tonight with steak and a strawberry / goat cheese/ arugula salad. What an exciting side dish!! Specially if your guests watch you make them! A real treat and something unique, yet infinitely simple!! Thanks so much. New favorite recipe!
Should I toss any potatoes with broken skin?
Made these last night with a roast - LIKE BUTTUH. Since I found your blog, my husband and I have both spoiled ourselves with the best food I've ever cooked in my entire life. Thanks!
We have mini purple potatos at my local grocer along with the red and gold. I bet they would be amazing in this also!
We have mini purple potatos at my local grocer along with the red and gold. I bet they would be amazing in this also!
Amazing recipe as always by Chef John & I'm starting to follow this blog. Looks perfect for a Sunday treat.
Chef John,
I made this the other day with grilled marinated steaks. The potatoes were a big hit with the family. They came out just like you said, very creamy inside. Thanks for the recipe!
I finally made these and holy smokes who would have thunk right? It's just insane how different these potatoes taste. They are so good and so easy. I have a new favorite potato preparation now!! We served them whole and just mashed them once with a fork and added butter/salt/pepper. Simple and wow!!
I'm not far from Paul Smith's where you went to school, actually worked at Clarkson University in Potsdam for over 14 years! Now relocated to Albany. and. Salt Potatoes which we can buy packaged with the salt in the bag here in NY, is one of Grumpy's favorites. We love to make them in the summertime to have with our bbqs!
Can you cook salt potatoes in the crockpot?
Rose, the potatoes must boil quite lively to have that special creamy inside, and a crockpot will never get them to the correct temperature in the dense salted water. You'd just stew your potatoes.
Took me a while to cook these, but they were smashing. Dipped them in tarter--perfect w/ fish, better than fries.
Select a good boiling potato. While it is possible to boil any potato you happen to have, some potatoes are better boiled than others.
Is it possible to use a bit larger potatoes if I can't find small marble potatoes ?
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Potatoes are a pretty common occurrence on our dinner table, but certain recipes take them above and beyond. These boiled Syracuse style salt potatoes are a regional specialty that everyone should know & love. Potatoes cooked in a heavily brined water result in the creamiest potatoes we’ve ever experienced, with less starch. This is the potato recipe bandwagon you want to jump on.
It wasn’t until a decade ago when my culinary world started expanding. It was when I met my husband, and he started taking me up North to visit his family.
Since then I’ve learned many things, and have discovered and shared many family recipes.
While salt potatoes aren’t a family specialty, I did first learn of them on a family trip.
They’re a special delicacy everyone should enjoy, and they hail from the Syracuse region of New York.
They’ve actually got a really interesting origin story too.
They originally sprouted from the Syracuse region of New York. Salt mines & salt springs abound in the area. It’s no big deal.
Around there, salt is really life. Gives the beach-y ‘salt life’ a whole new meaning.
Time may have marched on for a lot of us, but that’s no the case with salt potatoes.
These creamy, boiled potatoes first came on the scene in the 1800’s. They originated from smart, industrious workers in the local salt mines.
Salt potatoes, as they’re called are really a specialty of a specific region in New York- the Syracuse region. It’s also been given the name ‘ salt city’.
Not sure how exactly it began, but the basic version is that Irish immigrant workers (very proficient with potatoes), found a new way to cook their spuds for lunch.
Potatoes were cheap, and what they had. Obviously they’d take them for lunch. They boiled them in the brine from the mines.
Salt potatoes are, as the name implies, salty. On the outside. The saltiness was never the real goal though.
When cooked in a salty brine, the potatoes became extremely tender & creamy on the inside. This was what made them so popular.
It also made for an easy, cheap lunch earlier laborers couldn’t ignore.
Again, let me say that salt wasn’t the actual purpose- it just had a role to play.
Remember the creaminess I mentioned earlier? That was the delicious result of an unknown miner’s ingenuity.
I’m no stranger to the amazing way salt enhances my favorite potato based sides. In this recipe though, the salt is an incidental flavor enhancer.
It’s real purpose is to drastically lower the boiling point of the water in the main pot. That makes the flesh of the potato super creamy, and it also reduces the starchiness. Win, win!
If the salitness is a concern, the biggest thing is to make sure you’re using enough water in your pot.
While the amount of water in this recipe isn’t measured to an exact amount, I’d estimate that I used roughly three quarts for this recipe.
The ratio ends up being roughly one cup of salt (kosher/sea salt is best) to six cups of water. Make sure to stir, stir, stir.
Stir that water, and keep on stirring, until the salt’s finally dissolved into it & no longer settling at the bottom of the pot.
Syracuse Style Salt Potatoes are also a Spring & Summertime staple in their native region, making them a perfect recipe to share with you all now.
Cook the potatoes according to the recipe instructions, but a pro tip- let them sit in the strainer when done. Not indefinitely though.
Cover the strainer with a bit of tin foil to keep in some of the heat. We want them to stay hot, but this will allow all of the excess water to completely drain away- causing the skins to crisp up & the salt to re-solidify.
Resist the temptation to rinse the salt potatoes after they’ve done cooking. Either serve them along with melted butter for dipping, or do what we do and just pour the melted butter right on top.
Just don’t use salted butter. Obviously, there’s enough salt on the potatoes for everyone!
If you want to experience the creamiest dinner potatoes ever, then fill a pot of water add copious amounts of salt & boil your red potatoes.
These Syracuse style salt potatoes are about to be your new go to method for enjoying the starchy veggie. And they’re guaranteed not to disappoint, whatever your level of cooking experience.
25 Things That Make Syracuse Great: Salt Potatoes
Twenty-five years ago, Syracuse.com was launched. It was, and remains, the leading source of information and advertising in Central New York. To celebrate, we’re exploring what makes Syracuse great, and we’ve come up with 25 things that fit the bill.
The seasons. Snow. A full house for an SU basketball game in February. You get the idea.
Every day for 25 days we’ll explore the stuff we brag about and wear as badges of honor as a testament to the folks who make our corner of the world such a great place. We want to know what you think makes Syracuse and the Central New York region great. Tell us here. And you can see our previous stories here.
* * *
If Syracuse were a food, it would be a salt potato
From 1797 to 1917, the Onondaga Salt Reservation, a one-mile wide strip of land that wrapped around the southern half of Onondaga Lake from Liverpool to Geddes, with Syracuse in the middle, produced more than 11.5 million pounds of salt.
That’s enough salt to fill four Carrier Domes.
Syracuse was the salt capital of America. Salt runs through our collective vein like Salina Street runs the length of the city.
But the industry peaked around the Civil War. It ended nearly 100 years ago. The brine wells, solar sheds and wooden vats that once lined either side of Onondaga Lake are almost entirely lost. It’s a history we in Syracuse know, but unless you’ve visited the Salt Museum at Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool, probably have never seen.
The industry is gone, but the salt lives on. Case in point: the salt potato.
A staple at summer cookouts and clambakes across Central New York, the salt potato’s origin is often attributed to the workers of these salt mines, many of whom were Irish immigrants with a proclivity toward potatoes, known to throw a few spuds into the boiling brine for a quick lunch.
A Syracuse Herald-American headline from 1948 on John J. "Sport" Keefe, a bar owner credited with popularizing salt potatoes in Syracuse in the 1890s.
A 1948 Syracuse Herald-American story credited John J. “Sport” Keefe for creating—or at least popularizing—the salt potato around the 1890s. Keefe owned a saloon on Wolf Street on the North Side of the city, close to the salt yards from where he would fill buckets of brine to boil the spuds. He served the white-crusted potatoes for free at lunch alongside five-cent beers. Patrons would help themselves to the crock filled with five pounds of butter to top their potatoes.
"Syracuse salt boiled potatoes might well be called ‘Potatoes O’Keefe,’” the story read, citing an account of a local historian.
That name didn’t stick, but his recipe did.
Hinerwadel's Salt Potatoes. Don Cazentre
The ratio of salt to potatoes is eye-opening for the unacquainted. One pound of salt to five pounds of potatoes is common. A bag of Hinerwadel’s salt potatoes—the way most salt potatoes are consumed these days—contain 4 1/4 pounds of potatoes and 12 ounces of salt. Add enough water to cover the potatoes by a couple inches and boil away, accepting of the fact that every surface within range of the boiling pot will soon be caked in a crystalline spray.
Butter is essential, but unlike the salt-to-potato ratio, how much butter goes on top of the potatoes is variable. Ideally the butter should be melted and served alongside and each potato dipped individually before eating, lest the potatoes sit in a pool of melted butter as the steam washes away the thin white salt crust that sticks to the potato’s skin.
A snippet from a 1948 article on an Onondaga County Board of Supervisors clambake that depicts Sylvester “Buck” Easlick (far right), who was proclaimed the "salt potato champ."
Then you have folks like Sylvester “Buck” Easlick, an Onondaga County Sheriff’s deputy who, at a 1949 countywide board of supervisors clambake at Hinerwadel’s Grove in North Syracuse was dubbed the “salt potato champ.” A Post-Standard story about the outing talks of Easlick’s “old two-to-one system." Two pounds of butter for one pound of potatoes. A photograph accompanying the story aptly shows Easlick mid-bite, butter knife in hand.
CNY’s love affair with these fabled “salt marbles” has now expanded to baseball, when the then-Syracuse Chiefs played a lone game as the Syracuse Salt Potatoes in 2017. Following the announcement of the temporary name change, the team received orders for Salt Potatoes merchandise from 39 states. The number of orders went up 14-fold. It proved so popular that the team brought the tater moniker back for four games in 2018. In 2019, the Chiefs became the Mets, but the Salt Potatoes remained. Along the way, the team picked up a renewed rivalry with the Rochester Red Wings, who change its nickname to the “Plates” and don a uniform depicting its own beloved, but often maligned regional food, for possession of the Golden Fork trophy in the “Duel of the Dishes.”
It’s minor league baseball and Upstate New York in finest form.
Syracuse Salt Potatoes vs. Rochester at NBT Bank Stadium on August 5, 2017. The first pitches were thrown with real potatoes. Scott Schild | [email protected] SYR
Syracuse has no shortage of regional food specialties: Half-moon cookies, chicken riggies, Hofmann franks and coneys, to name a few. But no food better encapsulates Syracuse and its people like the salt potato.
In her 2010 essay for Central New York Magazine, Barbara Stith argued that salt potatoes should have a place at the dining room table of the world alongside the Buffalo wing—the one Upstate New York food that hit it biggest of all—and lamented, correctly, that no one outside of Upstate New York knows about the salt potato.
That’s because the salt potato is much more than a summation of its admittedly modest parts. It’s the U.S. No. 2 potatoes, a second-tier potato often smaller and with more imperfections than its U.S. No. 1 brethren, that has the proper skin-to-flesh ratio to produce a tender, almost creamy texture for which salt potatoes are prized among those in the know. It’s the brine, saltier than ocean water, unique to the geology of the area that made Syracuse the Salt City.
Byron Sizemore, (left) Tim Malone, both of Hannibal transfer salt potatoes from the cooking pot into another container at a chicken barbecue hosted by the Hannibal Fire Department. 2002 File Photo. Gary Walts
We’ll defend salt potatoes against those who ask how a dish of three common ingredients became so revered like we’ll defend the city against those who question why anyone would want to live in the snowiest large city in the country that’s also sees some of the least amounts of sunshine.
Salt potatoes will likely never have the fame of the wing. There will never be a restaurant chain called Syracuse Wild Potatoes with two dozen varieties of salt potatoes and locations around the country. Because at the end of the day, it is just potatoes, water and more salt than you’d ever think reasonable.
To love salt potatoes is to love Syracuse. Their high standing in our culinary hierarchy defies conventional logic. But here they are. Here we are too.
Syracuse Salt Potatoes
PARTNER POST: Reinvent potato recipes to be fresher and lighter in the new year. Make it your resolution to try these dishes as nutritious packed lunch ideas.
The salt-rich city of Syracuse, NY is also home to the delicious salt potatoes that melt in your mouth. Give them a try!
By Rina Kearns
I have lived in NY my whole life. I never knew how many cool things were invented from here! These potato’s for one.
The salt industry has a long history in and around Syracuse, New York. Jesuit missionaries visiting the region in 1654 were the first to report salty brine springs around the southern end of “Salt Lake,” known today as Onondaga Lake. Fast forward to the years of the Erie canal being dug by the Irish and German immigrants and you’ve got the number one staple of our region.
During the 19th century, Irish salt miners would bring a bag of small, unpeeled, substandard potatoes to work each day. Come lunch time, they boiled the potatoes in the salt brines. By the early 20th century, the potatoes were a Central New York favorite and local entrepreneur, John Hinerwadel, started serving them as a side at his clambakes.
Cooking Through the Pandemic – An Interview with Executive Chef James Waters
Despite the name, these potatoes are not overly salty, but rather very flavorful. Coat them with melted butter and sprinkle with fresh herbs and these little spuds will melt in your mouth! Be sure to head over to the US Potato Board and check out all their potato goodness! United States Potato Board provides inspiration, information, tools and nutrition information to potato lovers and chefs all over the world.
For another local favorite from a different area of the globe, try these Bombay Spiced Potatoes.
Preparation
1. Put the potatoes, 8 cups of water and the salt in a large pan. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 30 minutes. (Mine only took 5 minutes because the potatoes were itty bitty). 2. Drain the potatoes in a colander and shake to remove excess water. Let the skins dry in the colander so that some of salt crystallizes. 3. Meanwhile, put the butter in a microwaveable-safe bowl and microwave until melted. Serve the potatoes hot with the butter for dipping. Syracuse Salt Potatoes
Syracuse Salt Potatoes originated in Syracuse New York in the mid 1800’s. Irish immigrants would cook unpeeled new potatoes in huge vats filled with boiling salt water. The reason for cooking potatoes in heavily salted water is that the boiling point of water rises, thus cooking the potatoes at a higher temperature than you would using unsalted water (228⁰F. versus 212⁰F.). Cooking at this higher temperature causes the starches in the potatoes to cook more completely, resulting in creamier, less-grainy flesh. Potatoes must remain unpeeled because salt doesn’t easily penetrate the skin. This is why the interior of the potatoes don’t become overly salty even though after cooking and drying the potatoes the outside will become salt encrusted,. I’m betting that you’ll enjoy these perfectly seasoned creamy potatoes that are simply delicious when sliced up and dipped in melted butter.
Syracuse Salt Potatoes
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
- 3 lbs. small white or red potatoes, unpeeled.
- 1¼ cups salt (Use kosher or sea salt, do not use iodized salt)
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives (optional)
- 1 teaspoon black pepper (optional)
