Hasselhoff Potatoes?

It's no secret that I love potatoes.  Passionately and without reserve.  I often say that I've never met a potato I didn't want to eat.


Boiled, baked, fried, mashed or really, any way you can think of them, I love them all.   But, I live with six other people and they don't all share my love of all things potato.  So I try to come up with different ways to serve the humble spud.

I happened upon the phrase, "Hasselback Potato" not too long ago and I was intrigued.  A quick Googling later and I had a recipe.

So here's how I did it...

Preheat your oven to 425 - 450, depending on the oven.  Mine cooks hot, so I set mine to 425.  Start with six or seven decent sized russet potatoes, scrubbed clean, but not peeled.

                                     


Carefully slice a very thin layer off the bottom of the potato so it will sit flat on the cutting board.  This step is important, because next we're going to make very thin slices in the potato and it'll be difficult if your spud is rolling around the counter!

Using a sharp knife, make slices about 1/4 inch apart for the full length of your potato.  You don't want to cut through, though.  Leave about 1/3 - 1/2 inch uncut at the bottom.  I had a hard time eyeballing it, so I used the handle of another knife as a guide.  I simply slid my knife through the potato until it hit the handle of the other knife.  Easy peasy.

Repeat these steps for all the potatoes. They should look like this...

Now the fun part!!  You want about 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and very thinly sliced.  Or, about 2 tsp of jarred minced garlic will work, too.  You also need about 3 Tbsp of butter, chilled and cut into tiny cubes or slices. 

Spacing the butter and garlic evenly, wedge it into the slices.  I put a bit of garlic and butter in every other cut of each potato.  The butter kept wanting to pop back out, so I used a dull knife to push it back in.  After you've stuffed all the potatoes, drizzle 2 Tbsp olive oil over all the potatoes evenly.  A generous sprinkle of coarse sea salt and fresh ground black pepper tops it all off. 

Pop those beauties into the oven for 60 minutes.  Every so often, two or three times total, baste the melted butter/olive oil back up onto the potatoes.  That will help the skins to become crisp and golden - YUM!

When they're done, place them in a serving dish and, if you like, drizzle the remaining oil/butter over the top.  I opted not to, but it could be delish!

I served these plain alongside a grilled steak and steamed broccoli with excellent results.  The garlic became very soft and sweet, the potato was crisp on the outside, but tender on the inside.  All in all, our family called this one a winner!

The serving size depends on the number of potatoes you use.  I made 6 potatoes and fed 7 people, but Midge isn't a big potato fan and I was already close to my WW points limit for the day, so we shared a potato.  Speaking of WW, these bad boys are 7 points each, but totally worth it, especially served alongside a low point entree and steamed veggies. 

The name Hasselback potato comes from the Hasselbacken Hotel in Sweden where the recipe originated, as far as I can tell (Google hasn't led me astray yet...) and today's post title comes from my silly desire to call them Hasselhoff potatoes.