One night, a few weeks ago, as I was starting to fall asleep, an idea for a potato dish came to me. It was in thinking about some dishes for a mother's day brunch that's coming up. My sister, about to celebrate her first mother's day (thanks to my niece Sabrina), loves potato and a new recipes was called for. First step, two huge potatoes:

Step two, wrap once in aluminum and bake at 350 F (with convection) for 45 minutes.

Better wrap up a bulb of garlic and roast that too...

Meanwhile, in another part of town, I cut about eight dried figs into quarters and tossed them into half a cup of balsamic vinegar, and heated over the smallest flame my stove would offer. 30 minutes later I had a nice reduction (the figs took a beating once or twice during the process).

After 15 minutes cooling, they were still hot enough to be annoying, but not so hot that I needed medical attention. I cut the tubers in half and very carefully cut the meat out, tossing the meat into a sauce pan.

About half an inch of meat was left on the skins, which were then sliced along the edge, to lay them flat. With a healthy pinch of kosher salt, a crack of black pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil, I popped them into a 500 degree oven for a bit over 10 minutes.


While the skins were crisping I added a knob (one tablespoon) of unsalted butter, a 1/4 cup of heavy cream, plenty of kosher salt and some cracked, black pepper. I mashed and whisked the potatoes. Unfortunately, the potato meat was a bit undercooked, and didn't come out as smooth as I hoped. At least it tasted amazing.

I also squeezed all the roasted garlic into about 1/4 cup of sour cream. I whisked for all I could to blend the two. It looked wonderful.

I plated the skin, and then pressed about half an inch of mashed potato on top, smoothing it with a spatula (and my hands). I then drew a few lines of the garlic-cream in one directions; and a few lines of the fig-balsamic reduction in the opposite. The plate need a swirl or two of some extra balsamic (Jessica and I love the extra sauce).

The taste was just about dead on! I call the new dish "Potato Irony". The goal was to put opposites into a single dish focused on potato. The bottom of the dish is the super crispy skin and a bit of meat that is crisp, atop that is a super smooth and creamy bit of the same potato. Then in one direction is the creamy, but biting garlicy cream; and in the other direction is the sweet but acidic balsamic. It really works (you can see the layers in the picture of the last bite, below).

That said, it was my first draft of the dish, and Jessica provided some great feedback for my next attempt. First is that after removing the potato meat, I should cook it further (via boiling perhaps) to allow the mash to become much smoother. Then I should pipe the mash onto the skin. Another idea was to fry the skin before baking it. The goal would be to get the skins way crisper.

"Potato Irony" took about 90 minutes in all and is quite work intensive, particularly for a side dish. Jessica and I agreed the resulting product, both in style and flavor, was much more appropriate for an upscale, almost brasserie-style dinner, than for a brunch. So this one will wait for another opportunity to shine.