I know, I know. I just came back from vacation, but with a fresh 10 inches of snow on the ground, I am craving the warmer weather. “Only 2 more months,” I tell myself, before the weather starts to turn around.
In the meantime, I canned a little bit of sunshine over the summer. Some people call them tomatoes. I have a stash for moments just like this…
Last night, I was invited to a friend’s house for dinner. When asked what I could bring, she appreciatively suggested I bring a starch to accompany the steak and broccoli they were serving.
I knew the steak would have some hearty spices and the broccoli with a heavy hit of lemon and garlic. I opted for tater tots, which gave me a good excuse to open a can of the smoked tomato ketchup I canned last summer. I knew that the flavors would be strong enough to hold their own with the steak, but straightforward as to not clash with the spices.
Tater Tots
4 yukon gold potatoes
½ cup parmesan cheese
½ cup flour
1 – 2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1cup panko crumbs
1 cup clarified butter or canola oil
1. Put potatoes in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook potatoes until tender, about 20 minutes.
2. When potatoes are cooked, drain them and put them through a potato ricer. The ricer will extract the skin from the potatoes, so no worries. Alternatively, you can grate the potatoes using a food processor or hand grater. In any case, grate the potatoes while they’re still warm
3. Let potatoes cool to room temperature
4. Mix potatoes with parmesan cheese, flour, salt (to taste) and egg.
5. Divide dough into 4 balls and roll potato dough into 4 logs. Cut each log into 1 inch pieces.
6. Roll each tot in panko bread crumbs. If you’d like, you can further reshape the tots to a round shape.
7. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add butter or oil. In batches, cook tots on all sides until evenly browned, about 5 minutes. Serve with ketchup.