TURNIPS, GARLIC, AND ANCHOVIES

I don’t want to say I was prejudiced against turnips before trying them this way, but I know that admitting my faults is the first step to recovery. I was okay with the picturesque and comparably mild hakurei turnips, raw and cooked, probably because I played enough Super Mario Bros. as a child that they were subconsciously imprinted on me. The thought of this side dish, prepared one New Year’s Eve to go with a roast of pork, terrified me. It sounded like sad wet pig food from the British countryside (boiled turnips, a hulking variety of no particular distinction) in Riviera drag (the garlic, anchovies, and parsley). The results were good enough that they converted me to turnip fandom immediately and I left the perfectly roasted pig more or less untouched as I went back for seconds and thirds of the tubers!

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

18 garlic cloves, unpeeled

1 tin (2 oz) flat anchovy fillets, drained and finely chopped (about 12 fillets)

1 T capers, rinsed

½ C chopped curly parsley

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

1 T red wine vinegar

+ freshly ground black pepper

+ kosher salt

2 lb turnips, peeled and chopped into bite-size-plus pieces

+ turnip greens reserved, chopped, if available (or, though this is very optional, substitute 2 C arugula)

1 Heat the oven to 300ºF or 350ºF.

2 Separate the cloves of garlic but keep them in their paper jackets. Arrange them on a baking sheet and roast them until they turn a goldenish brown and are custardy soft, about 30 minutes. Squeeze them out of their skins and mash them in a small bowl.

3 Add the anchovies, capers, parsley, oil, vinegar, and pepper to the bowl with the mashed garlic and keep the dressing at the ready.

4 Put a pot of water on to boil and salt it well. Drop your turnips in the boiling salted water and boil them for 15 minutes. (You can test by scooting a sample piece out of the pot onto a cutting board where it should offer no meaningful resistance to a sharp knife—but should not be ready to fall to shambles either.) When the turnips are cooked to your liking, add the greens to the boiling water, then drain the contents of the pot straight away. Transfer to a serving bowl, add the dressing, and toss until completely coated. Serve hot!

HASSELBACK POTATOES

Hasselbacks are a variation on the baked potato that go in and out of vogue every half-dozen years. Their appeal is easy to understand: They have all the rich and satisfying attributes of a baked potato plus the crispiness of a potato chip or pan-fried potato.

The waxing and waning of their popularity is probably tied to what it takes to make them: It is significantly more preparation and work than a baked potato requires, which is right next to none. Still, it’s not at all difficult, and if you’re at all inclined to have a luxury baked-potato experience, you will be pleased with the results.

For the trivia nerds: These potatoes picked up their name in 1953, when they were devised by a cook at the Hasselbacken Hotel in Stockholm, where they are still served today.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

4 russet potatoes

¼ C olive oil

+ kosher salt

4 T unsalted butter

+ Maldon sea salt

1 Heat the oven to 400°F.

2 Peel the potatoes, if you like. Shave or cut a thin slice off of one long side of each potato, creating a flat bottom so they won’t roll while you prepare them. Set one potato between two chopsticks and slice the potatoes crosswise at ⅛-inch intervals, stopping at the chopstick so that you don’t cut through the potato.

3 Fill a large bowl with cold water and add the potatoes. While they are submerged, fan the layers out, using the water to rinse the starch from between the layers—this will help you achieve crispness later on. Remove the potatoes from the water and shake dry. Wrap each in a paper (or kitchen) towel and drain, cut side down, for 5 minutes.

4 Unwrap the potatoes and place them in a wide bowl. Dress them with the olive oil, making sure to oil in between the cuts. Who knew you’d grow up to become a potato masseuse? You’re doing a great job.

5 Set the potatoes in a cast iron or other similarly hefty ovenproof skillet and drizzle them with the oil from the bowl. Sprinkle with kosher salt and transfer the skillet to the oven. Roast, basting the potatoes with the olive oil every 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender in the center and golden on the outside, 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes.

6 Use something heatproof to sheathe the handle of the skillet and bring it up to the stovetop. Dial the burner up to medium and add the butter to the pan. Baste the potatoes with the sizzling fat every 30 or so seconds for about 5 minutes, until they are irresistibly crisp and golden. Drain them on paper towels and shower them with Maldon salt. Serve hot. (A little pile of caramelized onions wouldn’t hurt at this moment, and neither would an austere red wine looking for a friend to help it loosen up.)

LATKES

I know couples who fight over what style of latke is best and/or right. Since I grew up outside of the latke-making-and-eating tradition (I am ashamed of my Irish ancestors for not figuring them out), my relationship to potato pancakes is not freighted with my-mom-did-it-this-way baggage. Instead, when I moved to New York I happened into a friendship with a man named Mitchell Davis who had just published a cookbook called The Mensch Chef, which describes him perfectly. Mitchell’s latkes were the first latkes I ever loved and cooked, and are, to my mind, not just the greatest latkes but the only latkes. They are crisp, not cakey or “tender” or whatever the worst kind of latkes are. They use a two-to-one ratio of potatoes to onions, which is excellent for the aforementioned crispness and also for deliciousness. They call for matzo meal, not flour, because matzo meal > flour. In lieu of matzo meal I might crush up saltines and dial down the salt in the mixture, but a box of matzo meal is so cheap it’s hard to justify not keeping one around.

MAKES TWENTY-FOUR 4-INCH PANCAKES

2 lb russet potatoes

1 lb yellow onions

2 eggs, beaten

¼ C matzo meal or crushed saltine crackers

2 t kosher salt, plus more for finishing

¼ t freshly ground black pepper

+ neutral oil, for frying

+ for serving: sour cream, applesauce, ketchup

1 Peel the potatoes and onions and grate them with a box grater—set it inside a dish and grate the potatoes lengthwise into long strands. Grate the onions over the potatoes and toss them with your hands to combine. (The onion juice will keep the potatoes from turning brown.)

2 Place the potato-and-onion mixture into a clean kitchen towel, gather the corners, and squeeze the bundle to expel as much liquid as possible. Dump the mixture into a large bowl and add the eggs, matzo meal, salt, and pepper. Mix with a fork or your hands until the mixture is uniform.

3 Pour ⅛ inch oil into a 12-inch skillet (that should be about ¾ cup) and heat over medium heat. Drop a few strands of potato into the oil as your canaries in the coal mine: Once they sizzle, the oil is ready for latke making. Using three fingers, loosely pick up ⅓ to ½ cup of latke mixture and lay it into the oil, forming a 3- to 4-inch round with plenty of loose strands around the edges. Repeat to form 4 pancakes.

4 Cook the latkes until the bottoms are golden brown and crispy, 6 to 8 minutes. Flip them with a slotted spatula (I could imagine Mitchell using a Peltex, one of those fish spatulas that were once all the rage with pro chefs) and continue frying, moderating the heat so they cook evenly and do not burn, until crispy all over, another 6 to 7 minutes. Remove them with a slotted spatula and lay on a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Pour enough oil to measure ⅛ inch again and continue cooking latkes.

5 If the latkes become cold before serving, reheat in a warm oven until crispy, 5 to 10 minutes (don’t hold them in the oven or they will dry out). Salt lightly before serving. Serve hot with sour cream, applesauce, and ketchup. (My preference is yellow mustard, but I think that’s wrong to do to a latke!)

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES WITH KETCHUP

Here are some truths:

1. Joe Beef, in Montreal, is one of the world’s greatest restaurants, but not in some assholey world’s-greatest-restaurant way. It manages to be epic and humble at the same time.

2. Jerusalem artichokes get a bad rap. This is largely a prejudice we inherited from Europe, where they are regarded as fart-inducing pig food that should only be eaten during wartime.

3. Ketchup is good with everything.

Here’s how those truths fit together: Fred Morin and Dave McMillan, the guys behind Joe Beef, both worked for Normand Laprise, who is like the Paul Bocuse of Montreal. This is the way Laprise cooked Jerusalem artichokes, which is therefore how Fred and Dave learned to do it. And it was good enough for them to put on the menu at Joe Beef, which means that this is how you make a vegetable with a wrinkled reputation stand tall. The ketchup just sweetens the deal.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

2 T unsalted butter or olive oil

8 large Jerusalem artichokes (about 1 lb)

¼ C water

+ big handful of coarse or kosher salt

+ pretzel salt (or another large finishing salt like Maldon)

+ freshly ground black pepper

+ leaves from 3 thyme sprigs

+ ketchup, for serving

1 Heat the oven to 400ºF. Smear the butter onto a nonstick rimmed baking sheet or cast iron pan.

2 The Joe Beef secret for cleaning Jerusalem artichokes: Put your artichokes in a large, heavy-duty zip-top plastic bag and pour in the water. Add the coarse salt, seal the bag, and shake the bag vigorously. Athletically. Now open the bag and rinse the artichokes well. You’re getting all the dirt and debris off better than your hands would.

3 Halve the damp artichokes lengthwise and arrange them, cut side down, in a single layer on the prepared pan. Season them generously with the pretzel salt and a little pepper. Strew the thyme leaves evenly over the top.

4 Place in the oven and roast for 40 minutes. Turn the artichokes over and roast until browned and slightly shriveled, another 15 to 30 minutes. Serve them warm, with plenty of ketchup.

SYRACUSE SALT POTATOES

We are not so many pages removed from my buddy Dave Chang saying that a recipe with two ingredients is not a power vegetable. I beg to differ, at least in this case. I remember the first time I had these at our friends’ commune in upstate New York. Potatoes boiled in salted water didn’t sound like it could be anything more than what it is, but I didn’t adjust my expectations for the perverse amount at play—basically a 4:1 ratio of salt to water. This salinity makes the water boil at a higher temperature than water usually does, and while I can’t explain the chemistry of why that’s good, I can tell you it more or less “bakes” the potatoes, leaving a crust of crystallized salt on the skin and a surprisingly creamy, not-very-salty center inside. They go with everything you eat and cook during the summer, from corn to hot dogs and back again.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

10 oz kosher salt (about 2 C)

8 C water

2 lb new potatoes

4 T unsalted butter, melted

1 Combine the salt with the water in a large pot. Cover and bring to a boil. The temperature will be between 218°F and 222°F.

2 Add the potatoes and return to a boil. Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes. Drain and place the potatoes in a serving dish. As they dry, crystallized salt will appear on the skins. This is good.

3 Serve the potatoes hot, with the melted butter alongside for dunking.

MCALOO TIKKI™ SANDWICH

The McAloo Tikki is the Power Vegetables! veggie burger. They are burgers that are crisp in a way that meat never is or should be, and an amalgam of textures and flavors that would make whoever invented the Whopper proud.

MAKES 4 SANDWICHES

2 garlic cloves

1 serrano or jalapeño chili

1 piece (1”) fresh ginger

2 t coriander seeds

2 t cumin seeds

1 t ground turmeric

1 t kosher salt

½ C fresh or frozen peas

3 T mayonnaise

1 T ketchup

+ thinly sliced red onion

+ thinly sliced beefsteak tomato

1 C loosely packed cilantro leaves

4 potato hamburger buns

1 large russet potato, peeled (about 12 oz)

+ neutral oil, for frying

1 Finely grate the garlic, chili, and ginger into a large bowl. There should be about 1 tablespoon of each. Add the spices—coriander seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, and salt—and the peas to the bowl. Set aside.

2 Set up your assembly line: Stir the mayo and ketchup together in a small bowl to make the special sauce. Arrange the rings of red onion and tomatoes on a plate. Have your cilantro and buns ready and waiting.

3 When ready to cook, set a box grater in a shallow bowl or pie plate and grate the potato into the receptacle. Use your hands or a kitchen towel to squeeze the liquid from the potato. You aren’t looking to wring it dry, just to extract what’s there to be extracted. Toss the squeezed potato into the bowl with the seasonings and use your hands to fold and mix.

4 Pour ¼ inch of oil into a 12-inch skillet, preferably cast iron, and heat over medium heat. Eyeball the potato mixture into 4 portions in the bowl and use a gentle grasp to lift one portion from the bowl and deposit it as a lacy-edged mound in one quadrant of the pan. Repeat with the remaining portions to form four lacy potato-pea mounds. Fry the McAloo patties without moving or pressing on them for 3 minutes. When the edges have become golden brown, use a slotted metal spatula to release the patties from the bottom of the pan and carefully flip them so as not to splash any hot oil on you or your friends. Cook the McAloo on the second side until crispy, then re-flip and cook until the whole thing is mahogany brown and quite crunchy all over. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels.

5 Assembly-line your McAloos: Smear a bit of special sauce on each cut side of the buns. Set a patty on the bottom bun and top with a few rings of red onion, a couple slices of tomato, and a handful of cilantro leaves. Eat at once.