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Photo : from my point of view ( Shutterstock ) To say that people “like” the combination of cheese and potato would be to grossly undersell the power and popularity of the combination. They are a match made in heaven or, more accurately, France. Pommes aligot is the ne plus ultra of cheesy mashed potatoes. Far from mere cheese-flavored potatoes, these could almost be called “potato-y cheese.” Pommes aligot hails from Aubrac, a once-volcanic region in south-central France. It’s somewhere in between mashed potatoes and fondue, and it is intense, stretchy, and rib-stickingly comforting. The phrase “dangerously cheesy” gets thrown around a lot, particularly by that cartoon cheetah, but this is one case where it actually rings true. This dish is 43% cheese by mass. It contains so much cheese that it behaves like cheese. The cheese energy is so powerful, I’m afraid to let my lactose-intolerant boyfriend look at the dish, much less eat it. Making aligot is not technically difficult, but...

Photo : Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Sliders, cupcakes, petite quiche, and pigs ‘n blankets have something in common: They were all mad ideas, miniaturized food favorites that quickly became the greatest party food of our time. Now the baked potato wants in on the appetizer action. Make it mini, pop it on a skewer, and you’ve got a new classic party snack. I fully dislike regular baked potatoes. No matter how you flavor and prepare the skin, the average baked potato is a balloon of unflavored potato inside. Then you need a plate to dissect it and dump condiments inside, most of which will remain cold. It’s cumbersome, requires sitting, utensils, and focus—c ertainly not party food (and it remains a mystery to me why it’s fun at all). The mini baked potato corrects all of these issues. Baby potatoes are about an inch across, so added flavor on the outside actually works for the entire thing. They’re on a stick so you can grab it, walk, and mingle with friends at the party. Everything ...

There are a lot of ways to prepare mashed potatoes, and almost all of them are valid (even, or especially, the microwave method ). Most mashed potato recipes start the same way: Cube the spuds into roughly 1 1/2-inch chunks, then cook them in simmering water until they can be easily mashed with a fork. This usually takes about 20 minutes, but Cook’s Illustrated notes you can shave off half of that time   by slicing the spuds into 1/4-inch rounds, rather than cubing them into chunks. This move is quite obvious when you think about it: A thinner piece of potato will cook faster than a thicker one, and a uniform slice will cook more uniformly than a lopsided chunk. (There will, of course, be some irregularly shaped pieces taken from either end of the potato. That is the nature of things that grow in the ground.) Slices also take up less space, which means you use a smaller pot and less water (you just need enough to cover the spuds ). You can try out Cook’s Illustrated’s full rec...

Over two thousand years ago, a motley crew of Jews rebelled against their Greek occupiers and reclaimed the Second Temple in ancient Jerusalem. Later, some rabbis added an apocryphal tale to the event about oil lasting, as Adam Sandler would say, eight crazy nights. Today, we commemorate it all by eating fried potato pancakes called latkes. It might seem like a stretch, but hey, it makes more sense than a human-sized rabbit handing out eggs on Easter, or someone dressed in Tim Allen cosplay flying around the world with magical reindeer to deliver presents to every child in a single night. Traditionally, latkes are made of grated potatoes, onion, flour or starch, and an egg to bind it all together. But chef and professional Jewish sandwich slinger, Jeremy Umansky, is looking to change that. He’s making his latkes with just potatoes. They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat Umansky is the founder and chef of Larder Delicatessen & Bakery in Cleveland, Ohio—a James Beard nomi...

Photo : Claire Lower If you ordered a “baked potato” at a restaurant and were served a Yukon Gold, you’ d probably be a little confused. Baked potatoes— “jacket potatoes” in the UK —are canonically Russets. B ut sometimes canon is worth fucking with. Russet potatoes, with their thick skins and starchy insides, are the standard for baked potatoes. The tough skins get crisp , and the fluffy, sightly arid interiors beg for butter and sour cream. Yukons, on the other hand, have skins that are thin enough to blend into a mash, and creamy innards that are slightly sweeter than their larger, tougher counterparts. Baking the thin-skinned yellow potatoes may seem like a fools errand that could lead to burnt exteriors and dry insides, but I’m thrilled to report that isn’t the case. Yukons are incredible when baked low and slow. This is not a new strategy. I first heard read about it on Martha Stewart’s Instagram account a couple of years ago. I tried it out immediately, then tried to write ...

I have been eating a lot of baked potatoes lately, mostly Yukons . Like most things that hang out in the oven for a long time, they are hot hot hot when they come out, which makes them hard to cut. But waiting for a hot potato to cool before you load it up with toppings is a bad strategy—you need that heat to melt the butter and cheese. Here’s how to split and load a hot potato without burning your little fingers. Split the potato with a fork, not a knife Knives cut to create slick, smooth surfaces, which is not what you want when loading a baked potato. (The butter will slide right off.) You want the inside of your spud to be craggy and fluffy, so the butter can seep into the crevices. To achieve this, repeatedly stab your fork into the top of the spud in a zigzag pattern, then press on the ends to reveal an interior that is ready to receive lots of butter. Don’t burn your little fingers Baked potatoes are best served piping hot, a temperature not known for being kind to the skin...

Photo : nelea33 ( Shutterstock ) Potatoes have been saddled with a reputation of being “unhealthy,” and it’s unfair. The potato is just a lump of mostly starch (and a surprising amount of vitamin C) that grows in the ground. It’s as down-to-earth as a vegetable can get—literally. Sure, we can fry it in oil and call it a chip, but that’s hardly the potato’s fault. So why do so many of us think of potatoes as incompatible with a healthy diet? How did we start thinking of potatoes as unhealthy, anyway? One of the sadder statistics from the USDA’s surveys of our eating habits is that potatoes are the most commonly consumed vegetable in America . That’s not sad because they are potatoes, but rather because so many of us eat them in the form of potato chips and French fries and then don’t eat many other vegetables . A diet devoid of green veggies is a problem because it’s missing green veggies, not because it has potatoes in it. A variety of observational studies have related potato con...

Over two thousand years ago, a motley crew of Jews rebelled against their Greek occupiers and reclaimed the Second Temple in ancient Jerusalem. Later, some rabbis added an apocryphal tale to the event about oil lasting, as Adam Sandler would say, eight crazy nights. Today, we commemorate it all by eating fried potato pancakes called latkes. It might seem like a stretch, but hey, it makes more sense than a human-sized rabbit handing out eggs on Easter, or someone dressed in Tim Allen cosplay flying around the world with magical reindeer to deliver presents to every child in a single night. Traditionally, latkes are made of grated potatoes, onion, flour or starch, and an egg to bind it all together. But chef and professional Jewish sandwich slinger, Jeremy Umansky, is looking to change that. He’s making his latkes with just potatoes. They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat Umansky is the founder and chef of Larder Delicatessen & Bakery in Cleveland, Ohio—a James Beard nomi...

Over two thousand years ago, a motley crew of Jews rebelled against their Greek occupiers and reclaimed the Second Temple in ancient Jerusalem. Later, some rabbis added an apocryphal tale to the event about oil lasting, as Adam Sandler would say, eight crazy nights. Today, we commemorate it all by eating fried potato pancakes called latkes. It might seem like a stretch, but hey, it makes more sense than a human-sized rabbit handing out eggs on Easter, or someone dressed in Tim Allen cosplay flying around the world with magical reindeer to deliver presents to every child in a single night. Traditionally, latkes are made of grated potatoes, onion, flour or starch, and an egg to bind it all together. But chef and professional Jewish sandwich slinger, Jeremy Umansky, is looking to change that. He’s making his latkes with just potatoes. They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat Umansky is the founder and chef of Larder Delicatessen & Bakery in Cleveland, Ohio—a James Beard nomi...