Weekend Herb Blogging - Salt Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

I have been seeing posts since I started blogging for Weekend
Herb Blogging, the brainchild of Kalyn over at Kalyn's Kitchen, but until this weekend, I have not participated. However, I was visiting Anh at Food Lover's Journey who is hosting this edition of WHB and I thought of a recipe that would qualify and that would be appropriate for Easter as well, so here I am. Like a lot of my recipes, I can't remember where this idea originally came from, but I have been making it for quite awhile and it is one of my favorite ways to make (and eat) potatoes. While you may be put off by the amount of salt used... don't be. The finished product is delicious and when you break the potatoes out of the salt crust, only enough salt is left to flavor the potatoes and the rosemary is infused into the potatoes. The bonus? The aroma while they bake is incredible.

First, let's start with the star for this event, the rosemary. When we bought this house, it had a huge yard and I had a fantasy that we could have a kitchen garden by my door, but the sun wasn't really right, so we had to compromise. To satisfy my desire to have fresh herbs right outside my door, I have two large clay pots one witha large bay tree (that is actually outgrowing the pot ) and the other has a large rosemary bush and oregano, (seen to the right, you can see that I haven't started spring cleaning outside yet!) I use this rosemary all the time for cooking and even cut sprigs to tie onto a gift bottle of wine when we go to a friend's for dinner. No matter the weather, wind, Hurricane Isabel, snow on April 7 (yesterday!), this rosemary bush doesn't seem to suffer, and it finds its way to our dinner table at least once a week.

And this recipe is one of my favorites (Surprise! the Irish woman likes potatoes!)

Salt Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

5-8 small potatoes (red or Yukon Gold are great), enough to fit snugly in a 9 inch cake pan

3 cups coarse Kosher salt

1/2 cup white flour

The leaves stripped off of 2 4-inch long stalks of rosemary

1/2 cup water

Optional (not really, once you've tasted this you won't want these any other way) :

Sour cream

Caviar or fresh chives chopped

Wash the potatoes and place them in a pan that accomodates the potatoes just touching and touching the sides of the pan. Mix the salt and flour together, until well mixed, then slowly add water until it forms a crumbly "dough". sprinkle in the leaves of rosemary and mix well. Spoon the salt into the spaces between the potatoes and the pan and cover tops with salt mixture. Pat down until firm. Place in the oven at 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and invert pan onto plate. Break the potatoes out of the salt crust and serve warm with sour cream and either chives or caviar.

This is a great dish to have for company, it is so dramatic to bring to the table. It looks almost like you are breaking the potatoes out of a bed of ice crystals. Try it... you and your guests will be impressed!