Steemit Iron Chef 2017 #10 : Kimchi-Roasted Potatoes

Once again, I'm entering the Steemit Iron-Chef contest. This is my fifth entry, so I guess while I got a late start, I've been here for half the contest.

This week I made an appetizer! Potatoes are a rough theme-ingredient because everything you can make with them is great. I expect the winning entries to be both visually stunning and sound like they'd be really delectable. My entry is at the really delicious and passingly pretty, but poorly photographed stage.

But read on because making these is easy and as I mentioned, they're super-yummy.

The only problem is the time. See, you need to ferment the potatoes raw. I only gave them 48 hours in the kimchi and brine, but double that would have been better and longer yet maybe better. I think a week is a good target. Here's what I started with a few days ago (the two lidded jars are kimchi):

First, I washed the Peruvian purple potatoes and cut them into largish bites -- good for roasting quickly and good enough for eating.

I cut the knob of ginger, lengthwise into four l strips. I half-heartedly peeled it first, but I wanted to leave some of the peeling and the microorganisms that were living on it. I dropped them into the bottom of the half-gallon jar with a couple cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed but left mostly intact, and a big forkfull of ripe kimchi. Then I layered about a third of the potatoes in, dropped in another four garlics and big forkfull of kimchi and a glug of kimchi juice from the finished jar, and filled the jar up to the neck with potatoes. The potato chunks act like a screen to keep the bits of kimchi below the surface once the brine goes in.

I mixed up a heavy brine of about two Tbs Real Salt to 3 C of water. and filled the jar. Here's a hint: At the top of the jar, when I was putting in the potatoes, I arranged them so that there was a cavity at the center-top so that I could place a small jar in the neck of the big jar, to keep the produce under the level of the brine. In a two-day ferment there wasn't much worry, but if I'd been leaving these for a week, this step would be very important to prevent mold-growth. Here's what that looked like last night when I was getting ready to cook:

The rest of this is simple. Drain the potatoes in a sieve, pat them dry with a kitchen towel, spread them on a lined baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and seasoning, then bake at 300 for a bit less than an hour.

Here I am draining them. I tossed the ginger planks and the big pieces of kimchi because I was tight on time, but used all the small bits. (Better would have been to slice the cabbage up thin and roast it under the taters.)

Here, I've spread the potatoes and the garlics in the kimchi residue out on the silpat and drizzled with a bit of oil. I'm holding up the brand of gochugaru that I but on Amazon. Even though I've used commercial kimchi for this dish I make my own several times each year and keep this product on hand for that.

And finally, it's been roasted! The soak followed by the roast causes a lot of sub-surface bubbling as the water turns to steam, which produces a great texture. The salt in the brine imparts such a nice, crisp salt to the potato, that no one wants to salt the dish (everyone salts potatoes!). These were so good!

I really didn't do my presentation any favors by being in a hurry with the plate photography! My counter was covered with stuff, the lighting is goofy, It wasn't as obviously bad on the little phone screen as it is here on the big screen, everyone wanted me to serve dinner! So, it is what it is. I used these little square plates (they have dice-pips on them, but I covered that up) and garnished with three kinds of fresh basil leaves from our AeroGarden. They were prettier than my image implies, and always more important to me, really tasty!

I also made sure to split the few garlics up evenly among the family -- they were a big hit. :-)