Recipe: Smashed Potatoes with Crème Fraîche
This week our writers are giving you lots of posts about fall vegetables, so I thought I’d offer up one of the most simple and satisfying recipes from my new book, Good Food to Share. It’s a lazy mashed potato dish with lots of creamy crème fraîche and bright thyme.
With the seemingly endless variety of spuds appearing in the markets this time of year, it’s the best time to make this dish and let those potatoes take a starring role on your table.
You can use any waxy potato for this dish, such as fingerling, Yukon gold, purple, Yellow Finn, Red La Soda, kor others you find at the grocery store for farmers’ markets. Because the potatoes are “smashed” with their skins on, I often use at least two different colors to create an eye-catcher of a dish.
Smashed Potatoes
Serves 4-6
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb.
red- or ivory-skinned waxy potatoes, or a mixture, each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, scrubbed
- 1 cup
(8oz) crème fraîche
- 1 tablespoon
chopped fresh thyme, plus sprigs for garnish
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Instructions
Cut the potatoes in half and place in a large saucepan. Add cold water to cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, about 12 minutes.
Drain the potatoes and return them to the warm pan. Add the crème fraîche and chopped thyme. Mash the potatoes with a potato masher or a fork just until they begin to break apart. Season with salt and pepper, garnish with the thyme sprigs, and serve right away.
• Buy the Book: Good Food to Share: Recipes for Entertaining with Family & Friends by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan with photographs by Ray Kachatorian, $19.77 at Amazon
Related: How to Pick a Potato
(Images: Ray Kachatorian and Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan)
Recipe reprinted with permission from Weldon-Owen, a division of Bonnier.