You Can Keep Your Ramps, I’m Stampeding the Farmers’ Market for Potatoes
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Ah, spring. A time of perky little peas, stampede-inducing ramps, and fat asparagus. While other people go crazy for all the pretty green things, I go crazy for potatoes. Yes, potatoes. Any minute now, the true and real, just-dug, new baby potatoes are going to show up at the market. That’s when I’ll treat them like pasta in this cacio e pepe riff from New York City’s own Rita Sodi and Jody Willilams of the beloved restaurant Via Carota.
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Hold up a second, though. Just because there’s a potato at the market, doesn’t mean it’s new, so know before you go. “New potatoes are an abused and misunderstood category,” writes Elizabeth Schneider in Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini, a book you should definitely buy. (I love how mad she sounds about it!) New potatoes are not just small potatoes—they’re “first crop,” picked when their foliage is still green. A bonafide spring ingredient, not cold-storage staple! Ask your farmer/shopkeeper to be sure, because they’re special, and you’re worth it. They have thin skins and very creamy, sweet interiors; they’re young and dainty and you might be able to find very tiny ones, which are ridiculously adorable.
To celebrate the new potato, don’t mess with it too much. I like them steamed and then tossed with butter and salt and a fistful of chopped chives, and I will eat those straight out of the bowl with my fingers, thankyouverymuch. But if you want to frill them up a little bit, do the Sodi-Williams thing. Boil them till tender, then toss them with olive oil and grated pecorino, salt and pepper. You don’t need to peel them, and in fact, you shouldn’t. Their skins will pop open when you bite them, exposing sweet fluffy-creamy insides. Stupid simple, but freaking delicious.
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
