Birthday Dinner with the family: Potato Triumph

Cooking is like shopping. You get to a point where unless you LOVE (truly LOVE) something and there are no maybes or ifs (maybe it will look good with my green skirt or if I had red shoes to go with this.. hahah, or my if thought- if I lost 10 lbs!) then you buy it - or in the case of cooking - you'll make it again.

But really, there is no point in wasting the time or money on something you don't unconditionally love. (which really is the same for cooking and shopping) I hate throwing out good food that went bad because of a recipe!  This recipe didn't go bad, but I won't make it again.

Potato Triumph - it sounded like a winner to me!

It's from the Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook under the Boiled Potatoes section, which is good to know, since they don't suggest anything in the recipe about which potatoes to use or how they are cooked... so, I had some leeway on the type of potato.

To boil potatoes (as per the book):

In order to retain the fullest food value, cook potatoes in rapidly boiling water, with skins on or scraped off.  Use only enough water to cover.  If skins are to be removed, pare very thin and drop at once into boiling salted water.  Save the drained water in which pared potatoes have been cooked to make gravies, soups, or bread, as it is rich in minerals.

I chose about 25 baby potatoes and boiled them as directed in salted water. Then dumped all the wonderful Triumph ingredients in a pot and let it simmer until the butter had melted.

I didn't have any fresh parsley, so I used dry and I didn't have chives, so I used some sauteed shallots, (which I stole from the Rinktum Ditty). I don't think it affected the flavour at all...maybe it matters, but I don't think I have a refined enough palate for it to make a difference.

The flavour was just ok to me, I found the potatoes too oily and overall a bit bland.  Perhaps if I had made more potatoes since the sauce makes a lot then I could of tasted more flavour and less oil. It was definitely more than what I needed. I was feeding 4, not 14!

The kids seemed to like it ok enough, but perhaps they were being nice. I just didn't like it enough to make it a Keeper.


Potato Triumph
Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook - 1950 (pg 483)

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp chopped chives
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 3 tbsp lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients
2. Pour over potatoes and serve hot.