Confit Potatoes
This confit potatoes recipe is one of the best ways to cook baby gold potatoes. They are immersed in extra virgin olive oil and gently simmered to a tender texture and delightful blistered skins. In the process they become infused with the richness of the oil, flavored with rosemary and garlic.
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Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 lb baby yellow gold potatoes
- 4 garlic cloves peeled
- 1-2 sprigs rosemary
- enough olive oil to cover the potatoes completely*
- 1 teaspoon sea salt or to taste to garnish when serving
Instructions
- Wash and dry the baby potatoes, if needed remove any eyes from the surface. Cut larger ones in half in order to be working with same sized potatoes.
- Place the potatoes in a single layer inside an appropriately sized deep pan or braiser. Tuck in the garlic and rosemary. Pour enough olive oil over them to completely cover them.
- Bring to gentle simmer (most likely over medium-low heat, but possibly the highest low your stove has). You need to observe whispers of small bubbles around the potatoes.**
- After about 20 minutes of confit cooking, test the potatoes for tenderness. A fork should slide in easily. Allow enough extra time (5, 10, 15 minutes) to have the potatoes reach your desired softness. Meanwhile you will see the skins blistering.
- Once the potatoes are tender to your liking, remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon onto a paper-towel lined plate. You can add the soft garlic cloves. Reserve the oil for another use (see below).
- Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with sea salt.
Notes
*This will vary, but about 2 cups at least. The potatoes must be covered with oil. We recommend that you use extra virgin olive oil. It is completely worth it - the flavor is bolder and besides, you can save most of it for future use. The oil becomes delightfully infused with rosemary and garlic essence and helps to create even better tasting potatoes the next time you use it.
To save the oil once the potatoes have cooked, allow it to cool down, strain it through a mesh and pour into a quart sized container with a lid. Keep refrigerated until you need to use it again. You will add a bit more to the next batch of potatoes you make and new rosemary and garlic, but with each use the oil becomes better and better tasting. As a bonus, whenever you need a drizzle of garlic and rosemary flavored oil for something else you are making - it will be ready for you in the refrigerator.
If you want to try the recipe with duck fat or bacon fat, you will need to cover the potatoes completely with melted duck or bacon fat. The same process applies. We suggest to not add garlic and rosemary to allow the flavor of the fat to come forth.
**Read the relevant section above explaining the role of gentle heat, you do not want to fry the potatoes.
