Herbes Salées and Roasted Potatoes

Salted herbs: take some herbs and add salt. Or buy a small container of minced herbs preserved in salt. I found a nice bottle at an organic place I like and decided to give it a test drive. Seems to wasteful, I know, but there had to be something special about it. See, there are vegetables in this herb mixture too, so I figured it would be a higher vegetable-to-salt ratio than if I just added salt by itself. So maybe the sodium content is actually lower than an equivalent amount of salt because you’re diluting it with vegetables. Maybe not. Basically it’s overpriced salt, but you pay for the convenience of not chopping and mincing all these vegetables yourself. Ah, modern day consumers.

I had some organic new potatoes that tasted divine, so I chopped them a little, threw them in a roasting pan with a teaspoon or 2 of olive oil and maybe 1/2 a teaspoon of herbes salées. That stuff is pungent. Or just sprinkle with salt, oil, and your dried herb of choice. You can also add other vegetables but good luck mincing them like those in my container of French salted things. Toss to coat and place in a preheated 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven, use a lifter (you may need to scrape) to turn them over, and stick them back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. They should be soft. Test one and if it’s soft enough for you it’s done. If you chop them all the same size, they should all be done. If not, test a bigger one because if a bigger one is done, then the small ones definitely will be too.

You can roast at a lower heat for longer if you have the time, or higher heat (and watch them carefully so they don’t burn) for shorter. It also depends on the size of your potatoes. The smaller they are the faster they’ll roast.

Use good quality potatoes and you’ll be very, very happy. Yes, potatoes taste like something, and small new potatoes taste sweet and smooth. A tiny bit of lemon juice is good to add at the end if you like a more acidic potato. Mediterranean-style. I didn’t feel up to it. Felt more French. The French would cry.