Braised New Potatoes

These braised new potatoes are going to become a new staple at my house. The final results provided a buttery and creamy potato experience that’s enhanced by the liquid you braise it in.

Want really really good potatoes? Like addictively good potatoes? Make these braised new potatoes. And don’t skimp on the butter.

These braised new potatoes were deliciously buttery. The insides were lusciously creamy and there were crispy patches on the outsides.

I used small yellow potatoes but I think the recipe would work with any small potatoes—the smaller the better. We didn’t feel the need to add any of the cooking liquid to the potatoes for serving, so I was left with about 1/2 cup of chicken-flavored butter. I saved the butter to use in a rice casserole or another recipe—it was too good to let it go to waste.

I will be making these again, though I may increase the amounts so we have leftovers for the next day.

I thought we would want to mash the garlic and spread it on the finished potatoes, but we thought they already had enough garlic flavor. I used the garlic later in the week in pasta sauce. I didn’t have homemade chicken stock on hand, but I did have the juices leftover from roasting a chicken. They gave the potatoes a nice chicken flavor.

Wow. I was really dubious about this recipe. Braising potatoes in butter and water? But they turned out really, really well. So easy and a quicker way to prepare potatoes to go with a roast chicken if your oven is too small to roast the potatoes at the same time. Loved this!

I didn’t peel the garlic and removed it at the end and squeezed it out and served it with our roast chicken dinner. Keep an eye on the pan as the butter got quite hot and was on the verge of burning a little towards the end.

A lovely and easy stovetop braise that results in potatoes as delicious as those cooked for hours in the same pan as a roast. The result is deliciously golden potatoes, the kind you might have fought over as a kid on Sunday dinners at the end of the night. Made with thin skinned, new potatoes, I think this is a really special treatment.

I chose new fingerling potatoes, homemade chicken stock (a good reward for remembering to freeze in ice cube portions), and a mix of unsalted and salted butter.

Since winter has killed off my fresh thyme, I used a generous 1/2 teaspoon dried French thyme. Everything came to a boil over medium-low heat in 5 minutes. I gave it 10 minutes before a fork test, and since they were still a bit firm, I continued cooking with the lid for another 5, then they were beginning to brown and get that nice roasted wrinkle in the thin skins. I continued with the lid off for less than 5 minutes, rotating the potatoes to get them evenly browned on all sides. I gave a few grinds of fresh black pepper and then plated them with chicken breasts that I had roasted with lemon and oregano. I served only half the potatoes and, with some effort and discipline, reserved the remainder for weekend brunch.

There is some leftover clarified butter, which will have evaporated the stock and browned. I strained that and refrigerated it as a thyme-scented brown butter ghee and used it for cooking eggs and a nice breakfast hash with the remaining potatoes the next day. I liked that this satisfying roasted finish is something you can do stovetop, reminiscent of Sunday dinners, potatoes long roasted with carrots and celery alongside a chicken or beef roast, but these are finished in under a half hour!