Posted on 14 Comments on Hasselback Potatoes

Hasselback Potatoes

Chef Nick was going through some furious turkey experiments recently, and part of the exercise was to try out Hasselback potatoes. I’d never heard of such things, but they sounded pretty interesting, and his link back to Seasalt with Food, where he got the recipe, had me salivating.

Hasselback potatoes are apparently a widely known and loved way to eat potatoes in Scandinavia. Never having been to Scandinavia, it was all new to me. I decided to start off by sticking with the classic method, which produced the following results:

Blork’s Hasselback Potatoes

They were delicious, with a really interesting mix of textures. Next time I might gussy them up a bit by using duck fat and maybe a bit of cheese or bread crumbs. But not too much! They were so good in their primal form that I don’t feel the need to mess with them. Martine, who isn’t a big fan of potatoes (although my fluffy food-mill-mashed potatoes are winning her over) declared them a success.

We had them with a Spanish style pork rib roast with Romesco sauce. (Sorry, no pictures.)

14 thoughts on “Hasselback Potatoes”

  1. Wowza! Those look great!
    That SeaSalt with Food blogger sure knows how to make food appetizing. I’ve wanted to try some of her recipes for weeks!

  2. Nice, those look really good! I suck at cooking, but still think I can make those. Better off just showing my wife. :)

  3. O.M.G. Those look amazing. Definitely add the duck fat. So, so good.

  5. Those look awesome Ed… I have to admit that although I used to live in Scandinavia, I’ve never heard of this. But if you’re in a Scandinavian-potato-dish phase, I recommend you look up Janssons Frestelse (Jansson’s temptation), Sweden’s version of scalloped potatoes. Tatties, cheese, cream, onions and anchovies if I recall correctly. Mmm.

  6. Milliner: I forgot to add duck fat. Definitely will next time!

    LSC: scalloped spudz w/ anchovies? WTF?

    Dila! The beverage of choice would be whatever you’re pouring. :-) In this case we had it with roast pork and Romesco sauce, which is sort of a white meat thing, but it’s Spanish so you can do whatever you want. We had it with a Spanish red, I think. A Rioja. It was probably a bit too robust for this dish, but it’s not like I’m easily put off a meal because the grapes don’t match. What would you suggest?

  7. Ya did good, Blork, real good! I slathered my turkey with duck fat (available at Metro, believe it or not!) but it was plain old butter for mine. But they were delicious, and yours look so as well!

  8. These potatoes are fabulous – use goose or duck fat and it takes them up a notch. FYI – this recipe can be found in Nigella Lawson’s “Forever Summer” c. 2003 cookbook – complete with photo and the same Maldon sea salt … Still a great recipe and is always a hit with guests. Love this blog – looking forward to our first visit to Montreal this holiday season…!

  10. I made Hasselbacks tonight, very excitedly due to the haunting pix and all the fuss with comments here. The recipe was totally easy to follow and as I made them I knew they would be killer. Which is why I was sooooo bumbed about how they turned out: After 45 minutes they looked great but they were still a bit hard inside, and dry. We baked (not convection) them at 425. Since there was no guidance about what kind of taters to use, I got three varieties…all with similar results. Bummin’ in Boston :((

  11. Dila,

    All potatoes behave differently in all situations. I won’t go into why waxy potatoes make bad baked potatoes or why starchy potatoes make bad potato salad, but there are reasons.

    I tend not to follow recipes too closely when it comes to cooking times, heat levels, etc. With potatoes in particular, I find it takes a combination of manipulating the time/temperature — ie. cooking longer at a lower temp, covering at a certain point, or uncovering at a certain point, blasting at the beginning or at the end — experiments need to be done. It’s not reasonable to expect your first try to come out perfectly (though when that happens, it’s great!)

    In a pinch for your problem, I might bring the potatoes to a boil from cold water, then immediately chill to stop the cooking, THEN cut them, then bake them. That will at least give them a head start. Alternatively, I would start the potatoes covered with aluminium foil for at least 30 minutes, say, on 400, then baste with butter/duck fat/ olive oil etc. and then raise the heat to 500 or so, uncovered, and watch them carefully, so they don’t burn. Then I would turn off the oven completely, cover them tightly and let them steam in the residual heat for another 20 minutes or so.

    I practically guarantee that will work.

    In short, I generally ignore firmly stated cooking times, as all ovens and all potatoes are different.

    You can do it. Just do two next time!

  12. I saw these on Chef Nick’s blog and have been meaning to make them. I am addicted to potatoes (Irish father) and have a fine crop from my garden this year! I think I’ll use my Yukon Golds for this one.

  13. As always, your cooking looks superb. Man if you could only share the taste along with the photos!!

  14. Scratch and Sniff 2.0 is just around the corner.

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