Spiced Fingerling Potatoes with Dipping Sauce

These fingerling potatoes make a great side dish but would also make a tasty appetizer.  Aunt Miranda brought me a bag of "goodies" to play around with for the food blog, including these little beauties, kumquats, a pomegranate, and something that I'm not sure what it is but I'm going to have fun researching it and finding a great recipe to show it off in.  Hmmm... a mystery for later.

For the potatoes I found this terrific recipe in a Williams-Sonoma cookbook given to my for a previous birthday by Sher of What Did You Eat? so it's appropriate that they made their way into my birthday dinner the other night along with steaks.

The mix of spices is unique, so much that I hesitated to add the cloves (cumin, cayenne, paprika, garlic, and cloves) but I'm glad I did.  Roasting the potatoes mellowed out the spices to a simple earthy aroma and taste but still led a bite and almost floral sent and taste to the dipping sauce.  Gene and I both kept dipping into the sauce and saying "It's just so different!"  It's almost addictive in your quest to really tackle and define the taste and keep up with all the notes of flavor.

Spiced Fingerling Potatoes

from Williams Sonoma "Potato" cookbook

4 tsp ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 cup whole milk yogurt

1 lbs fingerling potatoes

2 1/2 tbsp olive oil

Cooking spray

1/3 cup finely shredded mint

In a small bowl, combine the spices. Stir to belnd well. Set aside.

In a bowl combine the yogurt and 2 tsps of the spice mixture to make a dipping sauce. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or up to 2 days.

Put olive oil in large bowl and mix in remaining spices. Cut 2-3 shallow cuts on each side of the potatoes to allow the spices to penetrate the skins.  Add potatoes and toss to cover well.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a large heavy baking pan with cooking spray and arrange potatoes, spacing so they don't touch.  Raost for 30 minutes and then turn over with tongs, continue roasting for another 20 minutes or until browned.

Serve on platter with dipping sauc ein center. Sprinkle potatoes with shredded mint for garnish.

Makes 4 servings.

Comments

[sher]

Yum!! Those look fabulous!! I love fingerling potatoes. They are the perfect shape for a finger food--and they taste great (the most important thing). That recipe looks great--perfect for Super Bowl Sunday actually! Glad the book is working for you!!!

[Jeff]

NICE!! I just got a bag of FL 'taters!

[Glenna]

Sher--Exactly. They really were fun with the steak but I could see them as an appetizer in a heart beat. Then the leftovers were great to chunk up for breakfast with eggs.

Jeff--All right! You go, guy! Can't wait to see wha tyou do with them.