Grilled New Potatoes

Although it wasn't always so, my children now love potatoes. (I so wanted to write that they "dig "potatoes for the pun, but I couldn't open with that; instead the pun gets relegated to the parenthetical). Baked potatoes are their favorites, but now we can add grilled to the list.

Two varieties of new potatoes. The red ones are from our farm garden.

We dug up some sweet little potatoes from our farm garden recently and bought another variety at the farmers' market. These small gems -- dug up early when the potatoes are still small and tender -- are sweet and delicious and don't need much fuss. But I have often found grilling them to be a challenge. Too often they blacken on the outside before they are fully cooked inside. The other day, we took an after-dinner stroll around the neighborhood and popped in to see my sister and her family. They were just finishing up their dinner, and on their table were a mound of stripey grilled potatoes.

It wasn't that we had planned to stop by and see what they had cooked to eat up any odd bits that they wanted to share. Sometimes it just happens that way. And I had just learned that potatoes are an excellent source of potassium (and check out all of that vitamin C!), an electrolyte that is important to maintaining proper hydration during exercise, during a triathlon, for example. I'd much rather eat regular food than supplement my diet with goo and Gatorade when training. (Here's an interesting article about the relative merits of foods and energy drinks and bars). So I popped one into my mouth. Yum.

The stripes came from slits that my brother-in-law had cut around the potato to help them cook more evenly. I tried the technique and presto, it worked!

Cutting the slits.

Can you see the rings where the slits are cut onto each potato?

Over medium heat, the potatoes cooked quickly and didn't burn before they were tender all the way through. We just tossed the potatoes with olive oil and sea salt, but you could add some fresh chopped parsley or chives, or go fancy and make a cumin-scented cilantro pesto.

A drizzle of olive oil and onto the grill.

Oh, and about that triathlon. I did it! My two sisters and I signed up for the race together, trained together, and raced together. Having that common goal was an excellent way to bring us together despite the other demands for our time. A friend recently said to me, "I can't believe you have two sisters when I don't have any!" Having two sisters does seem to be an abundance of riches, but at least I appreciate them. They have been my closest confidantes and friends throughout my life and I hope that will always be the case. Even if they did beat me to the finish line.

Second Helping: Harvest Vegetable Tart with Parmesan Crust

Grilled New Potatoes

Serves 6
10 minutes preparation time
approximately 20 minutes grilling time (depending on the size of the potatoes)

12-18 new potatoes
olive oil
sea salt

Turn the grill on and let it warm at medium heat for about 10 minutes.

Scrub the potatoes but leave the skins on. With a sharp knife, cut several parallel slits into each potato about half an inch deep and at least half way around. Put all of the potatoes in a large bowl and drizzle a generous amount of olive oil over them. Shake some sea salt over the top. Stir the potatoes with the olive oil and salt to coat them evenly.

Place the potatoes on the grill, reserving the bowl with any remaining olive oil. Grill the potatoes, turning them so that the skins brown evenly. They will be done when they are tender when you pierce them with a knife. The tiniest potatoes -- about the size of a grape -- took about 10 minutes. The largest -- about the size of a lime -- took about 25 minutes.

Remove the potatoes from the grill and toss them again in the bowl with the olive oil and salt. Serve just as they are or with chopped herbs or the accompaniment of your choice.

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