Country Club Potatoes | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with country club potatoes. That's right. I'm going to show you one of my favorite special occasion potato side dishes, which no, I did not learn at a country club. It was actually at a hotel and not even a fancy one. But I love the name and I love the recipe and I'm very excited to be sharing it with you. And to get started, we're going to cut up some peeled rusted potatoes in a very specific way, which involves first cutting them in half, which I like to do through the narrow side, which is going to produce the widest, flattest halves possible. And then what we'll do is cut each half in thirds. And once that's been accomplished, we will simply turn the halves and then make some nice thick slices across. And I would say like 38ighs of an inch thickness is perfect, but a little bit thinner or a little bit thicker would be fine. Okay, we're not machines yet. So, there's no way we're going to get them all perfectly uniform, but we're still going to do our best to try. Oh, be careful not to double cut, which is why every so often you want to push the cut ones away so you're not cutting through them again. And when we get to the ends where it tapers, you might want to do those pieces one at a time. But anyway, I went ahead and did that to six very large rusted potatoes. And once cut, we'll transfer those into a nice big bowl of cold fresh water, which of course will prevent them from discoloring, but it also helps wash off some of the starch from the surface. And if you wanted, you could let those sit and soak for a few minutes while you grab the rest of the ingredients. But either way, we'll go ahead and drain those and rinse them thoroughly before we transfer those into our casserole dish. And please make sure you drain those really, really thoroughly. All right, a few drops of moisture is okay, but we don't want to be adding a ton of water at this point. And once those have been transferred in and spread out and settled down, we'll go ahead and season these up with a generous amount of kosher salt, a few shakes of cayenne, plus a little touch of white pepper since that's what the chef at the hotel used, so you wouldn't see any black specks. Not that that would really matter. So, feel free to use black pepper if you want. And then to this, we're going to add some chicken broth. And as you can see from that beautiful dark color, this one was made with roasted chicken, but any chicken broth or stock will work, as would a vegetable stock. And then before this goes in the oven, let's take a spoon and give everything a quick toss so that our seasoning is mixed in evenly and every piece of potato has been moistened with that broth. And once that's done, we'll settle everything down again and sort of press everything into a nice even layer. At which point, this is ready to transfer into the upper center of a 400°ree oven for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes or until our potatoes are just barely tender. And while we're waiting for that, we can take care of a couple other components. The first of which would be our breadcrumb topping, which is simply some panco breadrumbs mixed with a couple tablespoons of melted butter. And we'll stir that until every crumb is coated. And the mixture looks like wet sand. And once mixed, we'll go ahead and set that aside. And we'll mix up our dairy component, which is going to be some heavy cream, to which we will add some regular whole milk. And we'll give that a stir and reserve that until needed. And if it's going to be a while, go ahead and pop that in the fridge. And that's it. After about an hour, we will check our potatoes, which are probably going to look something like this. And we will check these for dness with a tip of a knife, which should slide in without too much effort. And if our potatoes are tender, and these were, we will take a spoon and give this a mix. At which point, we can grab our cream and milk mixture, and we'll go ahead and pour that in. And then we'll give this another mix until that's nice and evenly distributed. And if you're wondering, couldn't we have just dumped that in and mixed once? Well, yes, we could have. And why didn't I do that? I don't know. All right. Sometimes I just stir things without thinking. But anyway, once that cream and milk has been mixed in, we will go ahead and top this with a grated cheese of our choice, which for me this time was a beautiful Irish cheddar. But as usual, you go ahead and use whatever you want. I mean, you are, after all, the Carl Spackler of choosing a cheese you think would be the most spectacular. But no matter what you use once that's been spread over, we'll go ahead and top this with our buttered breadcrumbs, which this time we are not going to press or poke down into the surface. Right? We're just going to gently spread those over the top. And once that cheese has been crumbmed, we will pop that back into the oven, which we've turned up to 450. And we'll let that bake for another 20 minutes or so, or until the tops a beautiful golden brown, and it looks like this. Oh yeah. When I see a crust on a casserole that beautiful, I do not care what's under it. I want to eat it. But we really do want to let this rest at least 15 minutes before we try to serve it. during which time we can take a barely damp paper towel and go ahead and clean up the edges of the pan, which is totally optional, but I think it looks better and possibly more professional if we do it. And that's it. After we let it rest, we can finish this up by garnishing with some freshly sliced green onions. And that's it. Our country club potatoes are ready to enjoy. So, I took a few contractually obligated pictures before I grabbed a spoon and served up. And if everything goes according to plan, our perfectly tender potatoes will have absorbed all that liquid, which I think produces a very beautiful, luxurious texture. And we'll go ahead and serve that up with another pinch of green onion, which besides looking nice, is going to make this taste even better. And that, my friends, just might be the most delicious potato graton or potato casserole you've ever had. Right. By roasting those potatoes in the broth first before we finish up with the cream and the cheese and the crumbs, we're adding extra flavor and richness that you are just not going to get if you cook this in cream or milk alone. In fact, you fans of fondant potatoes where a similar technique is used are going to absolutely love this. And the other thing I love about this recipe is that most potato gratons and casserles are done with thinly sliced potatoes. And while there doesn't seem like there'd be a big difference cutting them like we did here, there really is. And the mouth feel really is quite different than your standard scallop potato or potato algroten. And while I'm honestly not sure why these are called country club potatoes, I think the name is kind of catchy and somehow seems to fit. And if you're looking for a new exciting special occasion potato side dish, I cannot think of a better choice, which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And is always in joy.