Potato

Marinated peppers paired with potatoes is another star addition to an antipasto platter, and is equally brilliant served alongside The Spaniard (page 14). This dish will hold for up to three days in the refrigerator and tends to taste better when the potatoes have time to absorb the marinade. If you do prepare it in advance, make sure you bring it up to room temperature before serving.

When it comes to mashed potatoes, there is only one rule: Use more butter, cream, and salt than you think you need. The sweet flavor and creamy, moist texture of Yukon golds make them the perfect potatoes to mash. If you’re making mashed potatoes in advance, add a little extra milk to thin the consistency for reheating. Because Yukon golds have a thin, tender skin, we choose to skip the peeling and go straight to the eating. Honestly, we can eat bowls of these mashed potatoes on their own, but they pair well with pretty much any meatball.

Shepherd’s pie is a signature dish in the pubs of England and Ireland, sometimes made with lamb, as here, and sometimes with beef, in which case it is called cottage pie. The idea is the same: a simple meat pie made with a mirepoix—onion, carrot, celery—under a top crust of mashed potatoes. There’s no cheese in the mashed potatoes, but when the pie is baked, the crust is somehow enriched through the alchemy of cooking and tastes as though there were. Shepherd’s pie is usually made with leftover cooked lamb. Swapping that for quick and easy homemade lamb sausage is my revisionism, to give the humble pie a fresh and lively taste. Also, to gussy it up, I use tiny pearl onions so the onion element has a more defined presence in the pie. The horseradish is also my whim, to give the dish an acrid lilt that helps lift it above what might otherwise be humdrum fare. Fresh horseradish root is often available in produce stores and supermarkets around Passover for Jewish customers; wasabi root, though not exactly the same botanically, is similar and it is available around the New Year for Japanese customers. Like fresh ginger, horseradish root can be stored in the refrigerator almost indefinitely, as long as it is kept dry.

Partially cooking the potato and chilling it before grating serves two purposes: the potato gets thoroughly cooked within the sausage mix, which it won’t if it is added raw, and the sausage doesn’t turn out soft and mushy, which it will if the potato is cooked and mashed first. I prefer to get a jump start on this dish by preparing the potato a day ahead and chilling it overnight. But if you’re in a rush, several hours will do the trick, in which case, use the freezer to hasten the chilling. Rather than the standard Swedish accompaniment of mashed potatoes, I serve the sausage with a side of colorful, almost candylike roasted beets topped with sour cream.

Omelet, frittata, egg tortilla—all are different words for essentially the same thing: eggs mixed with vegetable and/or meat bits and cooked into a cake or pancakelike round. The advantage of this version is that it follows the Spanish or Italian custom of baking the assembled dish. That means no intimidating calisthenics to flip the cake to cook the second side. I serve this informal dish in its cooking skillet, but it’s also easy to lift it out onto a platter.

We’ve rolled two New Orleans classic pies into one to make a rich, deep, and satisfying dessert. It’s a real restaurant favorite that has been known to make visitors from the South go wild.

This has been the Dinosaur’s Wednesday soup special for as long as I can remember. It’s a good, hearty soup that’s perfect for places like Syracuse and Rochester, New York, that are blessed with six months of winter a year—not that folks stop eating Corn & Potato Chowder in the summer. Made with fresh corn, just picked and cut from the cob, this soup takes on a real summer attitude. Best of all, you can make it in less than half an hour any time of the year.

If you were wonderin’ what to do with all that leftover pulled pork or brisket you smoked, or if you have some nice roast turkey hangin’ around, give this a try. It’s our only breakfast item and it goes great with a couple of eggs on the side.

This recipe is so simple it’s downright hard. We’re talking about only three ingredients here—potatoes, oil, and salt. But you’ve got to pay close attention to those ingredients and their handling to come out with crispy, erect french fries. Make sure you read Fry Obsession (see below) before you start.

We make this salad every Sunday at the restaurant. I like to cook the potatoes til they’re soft so the dressing can penetrate deeply. But the true secret to our potato salad is the Zatarain’s mustard we have shipped up from New Orleans (see Resources, page 175). Sure, you can use another coarse-grain mustard, but once you’ve had a real Creole mustard, nothing else will give you satisfaction.

When spring hits and the asparagus comes into season, I can’t wait to eat this simple potato salad. Because it’s made without mayonnaise, it can be held at room temperature where the flavors can really develop. It’s perfect picnic food. Once the asparagus goes out of season, try making it with a pound of green beans instead.

We think this is one fine fancy-pants dish. The sweet potato crust not only seals in the succulence of the fish but also gives it a crunchy, caramelized coating. The sauce of roasted red peppers simmered with lots of aromatics makes for a sexy finish.

The last time I was in Chi-Town, I got the history of my favorite Chicago dish. It seems that the Italian immigrants who grew up in the shadow of Mount Vesuvio and then came to settle in Chicago developed this chicken and potato dish to celebrate the abundance of meat available in their new country, as well as their Neapolitan roots. We’ve given it a Dinosaur twist to get Vesuvio really smokin’.

If you want to make people stop, sit down, and eat, just put this classic comfort food on their plates. The rounds of corn on the cob give the dish a mellow sweetness.

Sweet Potato Pie is always served at Thanksgiving at my house. I used to think there wasn’t much of a difference between Sweet Potato Pie and Pumpkin Pie, but this recipe made me change my mind. It’s just sweet enough, and it’s so smooth and creamy. Hmmm … I need to think of more holidays to make this for, so I can eat it more often!

This is a nice variation on regular sweet potatoes for a Thanksgiving side dish. It’s almost a dessert, it’s so sweet!

There are as many versions of this casserole as there are southern cooks and church cookbooks. Beth’s is a compilation of several. I like the potatoes shredded instead of cubed and not as much butter as some recipes have (don’t worry, there’s still plenty!).

If I had to name the dish that is requested most often at home it would be this one. My family will eat almost anything if they can have these whipped potatoes on the side! I have been asked many times what secret ingredient makes this recipe so good. The answer is—potatoes! You’ll be amazed at how simple it is to make really great mashed potatoes. Everyone has his or her own preference, but I like to use red potatoes, as I think they are lighter and don’t get gummy like other kinds can. I also peel the potatoes completely, leaving no trace of skin, but if you like the skins, simply leave them on. For this recipe alone, I would encourage everyone who doesn’t have a pressure cooker to get one. They are safe and save a ton of time in the kitchen. A pressure cooker cuts the prep time for this recipe from 1 hour to 15 minutes.

I’m not sure if I ever had a store-bought French fry before high school! Mama made these home fries and served them with fresh-off-the-grill burgers. They’re the perfect side for Herb’s Fried Catfish (page 106) and Mama’s Cornmeal Hushpuppies (page 140).

My family likes casseroles because they get the whole meal in one pan, and this is a favorite. It was probably born as a result of my mom’s trying to put food on the table on a budget, and while a lot of people cook with ground beef because it is relatively inexpensive, I would pay big bucks to get to eat this every now and then! This is similar to a shepherd’s pie, but a bit heartier, I think.