I don't like fingerling potatoes

[Jenise]

There, I said it.

My deep dark secret is out at last. I find them waxy and too hard when cooked. They're cute, but other than shape I can't think of a single reason to buy them.

You may start throwing rocks now.

Here is rock #1. We love 'em. We put them on a tray in our toaster oven a 400 degrees after being rolled in olive oil. Bake for 45 minutes and they're delicious.

I'm with you Jenise...they are cute! That is all they are. I've sautéed in butter, boiled, steamed, and even roasted. Roasted was better, but really just a skinny baked potato.

Tsk tsk Jenise..here is a pebble to accompany Carl's rock. Crack them and cook(in a thick bottomed pan; covered) without oil and with just salt and pepper.Make sure you shake the pan occasionally to keep them moving. Serve warm. I found these marble sized (and shaped) potatoes at Whole Foods. Still wondering how to cook those.
-Shaji

Prompted by your post I learned something new. I've always assumed fingerlings were baby potatoes of some white variety or other. Always equated them with baby reds.

Just looked them up and discovered that they are fully mature at market. Never really thought much about the texture thinking it just varied by cooking method and doneness.

I think my overall favorites are the golds for just about everything but baking and mashing. Now I've got to try some fingerlings again!

My favorite farm at the local farm markets sells large fingerlings, which I think are the same as the French potatoes known as "la ratte".

These are fairly large, in fact rat-sized and shaped, compared to most fingerlings.

I really like the way they hold their texture in soups and stews.

Recently on another board someone whose opinion I respect said that they are the very best potatoes to use for mashed potatoes, assuming you want to use a ricer and get very smooth and delicious mashed potatoes.

If these are ratte potatoes, the French are crazy about those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratte_potato

The look exactly like the Wiki pictures.

The little tiny fingerlings, I can do without...

Can't go with you on this one, Jenise. I do like fingerlings. I think they roast, and pan roast, really well, especially with a touch of oil. A little garlic, a little truffle salt (!), maybe a touch of aioli (!!). I like the toothy firmness of fingerlings too

But I'm Irish, so potatoes are a natural for me. I love 'em all.

I'm with you, Jenise. Don't like em and they're stupid expensive just to serve a "cute" potatoe.

[Jenise]

Just looked them up and discovered that they are fully mature at market. Never really thought much about the texture thinking it just varied by cooking method and doneness.

You reminded me of something forgotten, Fred; that once I bought a bag of mixed white and pink fingerlings, and when cooked I found the pink ones quite nice. They held together as fingerlings are wont to, but they did get soft and fork tender. Which the white ones never seem to--I had kind of wondered if all the ones I'd gotten were old, but last week a neighbor gave me a bag of freshly dug potatoes a house guest brought them from his farm, dug up earlier that day. And--nope! Still hard. So were the fingerlings that came with Bob's meal in a restaurant the other night. Interestingly, Bob, who has no idea I don't care for fingerlings, didn't eat them and I asked him why. His answer? "They're only half cooked." I tasted one and he was incorrect about that, it was just a fingerling being a fingerling.

[Jenise]

Crack them and cook(in a thick bottomed pan; covered) without oil and with just salt and pepper.Make sure you shake the pan occasionally to keep them moving. Serve warm. I found these marble sized (and shaped) potatoes at Whole Foods. Still wondering how to cook those.
-Shaji

But do they stay hard? If so, I won't like them....

But...marble sized? Oooh ooh, when I lived in England years ago they had a potato there called a King Edward. They were marble sized, and incredibly delicious when roasted in the bottom of a pan with roasted meat of some kind.

That's fine. More for the rest of us.

But do they stay hard? If so, I won't like them....

They take on the consistency of a baked potato, but the key is to crack them slightly before dry roasting them.

Charlie Palmer's DC restaurant makes the most fantastic pancetta braised fingerling potatoes! It's not the fingerling potatoes as much as the pancetta: The potatoes are just the vehicle.

Can't go with you on this one, Jenise. I do like fingerlings. I think they roast, and pan roast, really well, especially with a touch of oil. A little garlic, a little truffle salt (!), maybe a touch of aioli (!!). I like the toothy firmness of fingerlings too

But I'm Irish, so potatoes are a natural for me. I love 'em all.

Hard to believe that Hoke and I actually agree on something!!!!

Can't go with you on this one, Jenise. I do like fingerlings. I think they roast, and pan roast, really well, especially with a touch of oil. A little garlic, a little truffle salt (!), maybe a touch of aioli (!!). I like the toothy firmness of fingerlings too

But I'm Irish, so potatoes are a natural for me. I love 'em all.

Hard to believe that Hoke and I actually agree on something!!!!

How are you on celery, Carl? (I despise the stuff.)

How are you on celery, Carl? (I despise the stuff.)

Yet you're a strong advocate for gruner. Go figure!

I guess I sort of see Jenise's point. They're not my favorite potatoes. Recently some form of purple potato has been the best thing going in our local market. And I get most excited about roasted potatoes as opposed to other preparations. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that I don't like fingerlings. I reserve that for the big baking russets.

How are you on celery, Carl? (I despise the stuff.)

Yet you're a strong advocate for gruner. Go figure!

You're right, Rahsaan, I am. We're all contradictions in some ways, aren't we.

As to potatoes, my faves go back to my youth in Germany and the small yellow potatoes, almost saffron in color at times, that were so tasty. Often with sauerkraut and bacon. Good stuff.

How are you on celery, Carl? (I despise the stuff.)

Yet you're a strong advocate for gruner. Go figure!

You're right, Rahsaan, I am. We're all contradictions in some ways, aren't we..

Well I love the taste of greasy bacon in Northern Rhone syrah but can't stand the stuff in 'real life'.

Well I love the taste of greasy bacon in Northern Rhone syrah but can't stand the stuff in 'real life'.

Now, waitaminnit, Rahsaan. I know that you're a vegetarian and have been so for as long as I've known you (7 years now), but do you really actively dislike bacon? I'd thought that bacon appreciation was hard-coded on the Y chromosome. Do you mean to say that you've tried that delectable salty-smoky pork thing and found it not to your liking? Your response to that question won't change my opinion of you, but I might have to rethink my opinions about the bacon gene!

Mark Lipton

Now, waitaminnit, Rahsaan. I know that you're a vegetarian and have been so for as long as I've known you (7 years now), but do you really actively dislike bacon? I'd thought that bacon appreciation was hard-coded on the Y chromosome. Do you mean to say that you've tried that delectable salty-smoky pork thing and found it not to your liking? Your response to that question won't change my opinion of you, but I might have to rethink my opinions about the bacon gene!

Mark Lipton

I don't know that I've had the best bacon in the world, but what I have tasted was too strong and turned me off.

I can tolerate meat in small bits (e.g. dumplings) where it only adds to the overall flavor but doesn't stick out. I can also enjoy prosciutto, but only when it's mainly just a salty taste and not too meaty. Which I fully realize is just as lame as people who 'enjoy' cheese only when it's so mild they can't really taste it. I.E. I'm not actually enjoying the meat. But hey, I never claimed to!

Jenise, I am with you here. For awhile I thought I was just buying bad batches of them because I was finding the same things you were. Not moist inside, just kind of waxy.
My favorites are these baby Yukon Golds that I've been getting from Fresh Market. They are the perfect roasting (or "splatting") potato IMO.
Speaking of splats, I think Rachel Ray was on our boards. She has a recipe for splats on page 24 of her October issue, but she calls them "Pressed Potatoes."

When I was browsing through my Momofuku cookbook, for information about meat glue, I stumbled on a recipe for "Confit Fingerling Potatoes." And then I remembered that I have a nice jar of DUCK FAT. Hmmmmmm

Here is one version of it online, using the "wrong" potatoes. I think if this recipe works the way I imagine, the product would be something even Jenise would enjoy, even with my "ratte" fingerlings.

http://blog.belm.com/2010/10/28/confit- ... -potatoes/

We had fingerling potatoes this weekend. They were baked in bacon fat. They were tender but had no flavor at all. Liz thinks they were old as she had to do a lot of trimming. Very dissapointing.