Comfort food — this time in the form of garlicy, cheesy potatoes. Nothing Better than this Hasselback Potato Skillet Bake. While intended as a side dish, this also would work great as an alternative to hashbrowns for breakfast (though you might want to cut back on the garlic early in the morning … or maybe add some bacon!) or add chili, or salsa and jalepenos, and monterey jack cheese for some game day potato nachos. These are seriously delicious, even though I think that the neighbors will be mad at me for the extreme garlic smell for a little while!
Ingredients
6-8 long (narrow) waxy potatoes* (depending on the size of your cast iron skillet)
4 garlic cloves, minced
12 (1 1/2 sticks) tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons finely minced herbs (I used parsley, rosemary and thyme, but whatever you like)
4 tablespoons grated parmesan (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 425F.
Wash / Scrub the potatoes thoroughly. The skins will be left on, so be sure that they are clean and all the hard bits from the skin are off. In a small mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, garlic and minced herbs. Set aside.
Slice a thin layer off the bottom of each potato. This will serve to give them a solid base to rest on while they get sliced. Using a sharp knife, make slices across the potato, about 1/8 of an inch apart, slicing into them, but not completely through them. The slices should stay connected at the bottom. Repeat with each potato. Stretch them a bit to fan them out but be very careful not to break them apart! Trick: place a chopstick perpendicular on either side of the potato so that you will hit the chopstick before slicing all the way through.
Reserve 1/3 of the garlic-herb butter. Using a pastry brush, brush the bottom and sides of your cast iron skillet and each potato with the garlic-herb butter mixture, being generous and making sure to get in between each slice. Nestle the potatoes into the skillet. Sprinkle with parmesan (if using). Generously sprinkle potatoes with salt and pepper.
Bake for 1 hour or until tender on the inside and crisp on the outside. Remove the skillet from the oven about every 15 minutes to baste potatoes with the remaining garlic-herb butter.
*not russets, but yellow, white, red, yukon gold or waxy heirloom variety. I used baby yukon golds.
