Cooking for eight can make it hard to get everything on the table at the same time, especially if you are serving side dishes. That’s why I love this recipe, you can prep it earlier, then half an hour before serving, drizzle your melted butter, garlic and thyme over your potatoes and put them in the oven while you get everything else ready. I drift a little from the original recipe, I like to make things simpler to save time, and I like to slice my potatoes almost all the way through and place them in the baking tray cut-side-up. They look prettier. And I think it makes them crunchier too. Sometimes I don’t even boil the potatoes first, I just add about an extra 15 minutes to the cooking time. They are perfect to serve with a fancy roast, but more often than not I serve them when we BBQ, but I still cook them in the oven.
Hasselback Potatoes with Thyme and Garlic – My Way!
Ingredients:
12 Medium Sized Desiree Potatoes (you generally serve one or two per person)
Fresh Thyme Sprigs
40g Butter, melted
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
4 – 6 cloves of garlic, minced or diced
Sea Salt Flakes (regular works just fine)
Directions:
Place the potato in a large saucepan of water.
Bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Simmer for 20 minutes or until just cooked.
Drain and set aside to cool slightly.
Pre-heat your oven to 200C.
Now, like I said, I like to cheat and skip the boiling step, so I would start with this next step:
Take each potato and without cutting all the way through the potato, use a sharp knife to carefully make slits across the width of each potato down the whole length of the potato to make very thin slices (see picture above).
Place each potato in a lightly greased baking dish.
Place sprigs of thyme into a couple of slits of each potato and also sprinkle some thyme leaves over the top.
Combine your butter, oil and garlic in a microwave safe bowl and heat for approx. 40 seconds. I find this releases the flavour of the garlic into the butter and oil and adds to the flavour of the potatoes.
Pour the butter/oil/garlic mixture evenly over the potatoes and place into your pre-heated oven for 30 minutes if par-boiled, or approx. 45 minutes if your potatoes are raw (like mine). Just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn, remember, each oven is different, so cooking times can vary.
Sprinkle with Sea Salt Flakes before serving.
Notes:
Source of Original Recipe: http://www.taste.com.au