From the SCCC Kitchen: Skins stay on to give grilled potatoes a healthful kick

From the SCCC Kitchen: Skins stay on to give grilled potatoes a healthful kick

Grilled Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic

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From the SCCC Kitchen offers Daily Gazette readers tastes from Schenectady County Community College’s nationally accredited American Culinary Federation culinary arts program. Recipes selected by SCCC instructors can easily be prepared at home. Today, The Gazette concludes a summerlong batch of recipes offered by technical specialist (and certified executive chef) Christopher Tanner. The finale is a fall harvest of small potatoes — Grilled Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic. Tanner offers more cooking tips at his blog, “Gastronomic Inspirations” at cheftanner.com.

Schenectady County Community College technical specialist (and certified executive chef) Christopher Tanner offers grilled new potatoes.
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Christopher Tanner has his own version of “tater tots.”

His spuds are small, like the baked staples kids (and some adults) smother with cheese and ketchup.

There are no toppings allowed on Tanner’s “Grilled Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic.” There’s enough flavor in them to bypass participation by Kraft and Heinz.

“People love starch,” said Tanner, whose recipe scores points for easy preparation, taste, health and simplicity.

The easy prep work comes courtesy of aluminum foil. The fingerling, baby Yukon gold and baby purple potatoes used for the dish are wrapped in a foil packet for their time over (or under) the heat. The taste comes from pepper, rosemary and garlic used to spice up the round vegetables; the healthful component is represented by skins that stay on the spuds. “If you take the skins off, you lose all the nutrients,” Tanner said.

Washing the dishes is simple because there are no dishes — once the seasoned and sizzled potatoes are off the grill or out of the oven, aluminum foil is rolled up and thrown away.

Unlike many recipes, chefs don’t have to keep a constant vigil near the flames.

“This is one of those recipes that you can kind of forget for 15 minutes on the grill or the oven and it will still be fine,” Tanner said.

The potatoes, in different shapes and colors, make a great side dish for autumn plates.

GRILLED POTATOES WITH ROSEMARY AND GARLIC

2 pounds varied small potatoes (fingerlings, baby Yukon gold, baby purple potatoes)

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

3 sprigs rosemary, leaves removed and minced

5 cloves garlic, crushed

Heat a grill on medium-high heat. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients.

Place a large piece of aluminum foil flat on the counter, place the potatoes on top of foil, add a second piece of foil over potatoes and seal potatoes inside aluminum foil pouch by crimping the edges securely.

Place the aluminum packet over grill and cook for 10 minutes. Flip the package and grill and additional 20 to 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. You can poke them through the packet with a toothpick to check if they are tender.

Remove potatoes from the grill packet and serve.

Serves 4 to 6.

What the heck have I been up to?

Oh goodness it has been a long time since my last post. Well I am teaching full-time at Schenectady County Community College and things could not be any better. I seriously can't say I recall any better time in my life. I am the lead instructor for Garde Manger, I personally teach three sections of the class with two other instructors teaching under my curriculum. I also run the restaurant class on Tuesday nights (make reservations in advance, the days fill up quick) and I teach the basic baking class called Elements of Baking.

I have been working in an America Culinary Federation Knowledge Bowl team for the college along with a number of other great things. On the competition note, I haven't done much myself lately because of work. For those who are ACF members, you will see in the next National Culinary Review that I am named one of the newest ACf certified culinary judges, so proud and humble at the same time.

I am judging one of my first competitions this winter in St Augustine, Fl. I won both my first gold in cold food (garde manger) competition along with my first market basket (mystery basket competition) at this show. Again, I am humbled that I get the chance to come full-circle to judge at this competition.

In the next couple weeks I will be competing in a couple competitions. One will be in Pennsylvania, while the other will be in Delhi, NY. I have never competed in the seafood category, so I thought I would come up with a new dish for that category. To be honest the dish came to me by accident. I purchased some salt cod last week and decided to make some traditional New England salt cod cakes.

The dish I came up with is a sous-vide olive oil poached black cod, set upon a truffled smoke black cod potato cake with rainbow chard two ways (julienne stems sauteed in butter, and the leaves wilted with garlic and shallots with a bit of pumpkin oil. The sauce will be a beurre rouge (red wine butter sauce).

I hope you all are well, thanks for reading... I will try to keep you all up on my latest escapades. Be well, and be safe.