Wrinkled potatoes with mojo verde

When we ate at The Bazaar by Jose Andres, I did have one rule. I didn’t want to order anything on the menu that was also featured in his cookbooks. I decided I would rather make those dishes at home. The night we were there, one of the more popular menu items was wrinkled potatoes with green mojo, which also happens to be in his Made in Spain cookbook.

This is actually a very simple recipe – potatoes are cooked in highly salted water until tender. After they’re cooked through, the water is poured off and a thin layer of salt crystallizes on the outside of the potatoes. They’re called wrinkled potatoes because the skins of the potatoes get wrinkled during the cooking process. The potatoes are served with a brightly flavored sauce of cilantro, garlic and olive oil.

The recipe in the book says that you can use any small potatoes. At the restaurant, it looked like they were using small fingerling potatoes, so I went with some great fingerlings that I picked up at the farmer’s market.

The measurements in this recipe are a little shocking. Almost a cup of salt for one pound of potatoes? I’m pretty daring, but even I was a bit nervous about dumping that much salt into the pot. I decided to throw caution to the wind, and it worked out just fine. The potatoes came out with a very thin layer of salt on them, which was the perfect amount. The cooking process makes the potatoes very creamy, and the green mojo made for a great dipping sauce.

Wrinkled potatoes with mojo verde

Serves 3-4

Adapted from Made in Spain

For the potatoes:

1 lb fingerling or other small potatoes

3/4 cup kosher salt

For the mojo verde:

1 small clove of garlic, crushed

1 cup packed cilantro leaves

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp sherry vinegar

salt to taste

Put the potatoes in a pot, cover with water and add the salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the potatoes for about 25 minutes, or until tender.

Pour out most of the water, leaving just a thin layer in the bottom of the pot. Return the pot to the stovetop. Shake the pot over low heat until the salt covering the potatoes starts to crystallize, about 3-5 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and cover the pot with a paper towel until the potato skins have wrinkled, about 10 minutes.

Put all of the ingredients for the mojo verde into a food processor. Pulse until a paste forms. Serve the potatoes with the mojo for dipping.