Hasselback Potatoes

I am sure you would all agree that a dish that looks gorgeous like this needs to be instantly  tried and tasted ! 

The only hitch is that i develop the craziest urge to try them at all odd times - like this yummy potatoes were looking at me very invitingly from my bookmarked recipes folder at 7 in the night ! The dinner was already planned and nobody was in any mood for a snack-but Potatoes are Potatoes and they have the loveliest (?) quality of lulling all and sundry to their charm and i adamantly stick to my urge. So cutting the long story short this beauty made an entry in my kitchen at around 8:30 in the night.  


I added my little twist to the original recipe by sprinkling on a few  dried herbs and topping it with cheese gratings; of course this can be jazzed up a whole lot of other ways which i plan to do in a few days


Recipe Courtesy : The Purple Foodie


(Preparation time - 10 minutes, Cooking/Baking time  - 1 hr)


Ingredients

• Large potatoes - 2 to 3
• Butter - 3 or 4 tiny cubes
• Olive oil - 3 to 4 tbsp
• Garlic - 5 to 6 (thinly sliced)
• Salt - to tatse

Sprinkle with:- (as required)  (My twist to the beauties)

• Oregano
• Chives 
• Rosemary
• Grated Cheese
• Lemon Pepper

The ingredients a look---

How:-


Preheat the oven to 225C/440F.
Scrub the potatoes clean with the skin intact ! Th crispy crunchy golden brown skin at the end of baking is too good !!

(Now the original recipe called for boiling the potatoes for 10 min before cooking in the oven-- i skipped that and instead baked the whole thing for an hour )


Slice a thin layer off the base of the potato so that it sits well and doesn't roll across while slicing through.

Cut across the potatoes at regular intervals as shown in the picture, making sure that you don’t cut all the way through.

Grease a baking tray and lay the potatoes on a baking sheet. Place the sliced garlic in between the layers of potatoes, and push the cubes of butter in at equal intervals.

Give it a good sprinkle of all the choice herbs as well as the grated cheese.  I used salted butter so i did not sprinkle salt . Drizzle the olive oil over it and put it in the oven for 40 minutes, or 60 minutes (if you haven’t parboiled them).

While the potatoes are in the oven, baste the top of the potatoes with the olive oil from the pan to make the outside extra crispy. So after every 15 minutes i bathed the potato in its own juices --


(Basting is a cooking technique that involves cooking the ingredient (usually meat) in its own juices. The purpose of basting is to keet it  moist during oven cooking and also to give it enhanced flavours.)

Remove from oven and enjoy it with sauce of your choice !!

Linking this to Aipi's Bookmarked Recipes :Tuesday event announcement by Priya