Smoked Pickled Potatoes with Anchovy Aioli
These smoked pickled potatoes are made by brining new potatoes in malt vinegar, deep-frying them, and serving them with homemade aioli.
Equipment
- Wood sawdust, chips, chunks, pellets, or bisquettes; deep-fry or candy or instant-read thermometer
Ingredients
For the anchovy aioli
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
- 6 anchovy fillets, minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
- 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
For the smoked pickled potatoes
- 2 pounds small red new potatoes, 1 to 1 1/2 inches (25 to 36 mm) in diameter, scrubbed
- 4 cups malt vinegar
- Peanut oil, for frying
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
Make the anchovy aioli
- Sprinkle the garlic with a bit of salt and, using the flat side of your knife's blade, rub the salt back and forth into the garlic to make a paste.
- Scrape the garlic and anchovies into a medium bowl and add the lemon juice and egg yolks. Give the mixture a good whisking until everything is well combined.
- Slowly drizzle a few drops oil into the bowl while whisking vigorously. (Think Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia.) Continue this drop-by-drop drizzling and whisking pas de deux until the mixture is thick and homogenous. You can now add the rest of the oil in a very thin thread, all the while whisking energetically until the aioli is lusciously smooth and light yellow. Season with salt. (The aioli can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
Pickle, smoke, and fry the potatoes
- Toss the potatoes in a large pot and add enough cold water to cover by 2 inches. Add the salt, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook gently until tender, 10 to 12 minutes or longer if your potatoes are larger.
- Meanwhile, fill a large bowl halfway with ice and water. When the potatoes are done, drain them and then plop them into the ice water. Let them chill until cooled completely.
- Drain the potatoes again and prick each potato with a toothpick or thin metal skewer numerous times—a couple dozen pricks per potato doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
- Pour the vinegar into a medium nonreactive bowl and slip in the potatoes. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the potatoes hang out on the counter in their pickling bath overnight or for at least 8 hours.
- Following the manufacturer's instructions, set up your smoker, smoker box, charcoal grill, or gas grill for cold smoking using wood sawdust, chips, chunks, pellets, or bisquettes. Hell, you can even get a cast-iron skillet screaming hot on your stovetop, place it on your turned-off grill, toss in some wood chips, and close the cover. Voilà, instant cold smoker.
- Smoke the potatoes, making sure to keep the temperature under 100°F (38°C), for 1 hour. Since the potatoes are already cooked, you're just trying to give them that great smoke flavor. Keep an eye on the heat, because if it goes higher, you'll dry out the potatoes. Remove the spuds from the smoker and blot any moisture from their skins. You can refrigerate the potatoes for several hours or you can immediately move on to the best part of this recipe, which is the frying.
- Pour enough peanut oil into a heavy pot so that it reaches a depth of 2 inches. Heat the oil to 375°F (190°C) using a deep-fry or candy or instant-read thermometer to monitor the temperature. While the oil is heating, place the potatoes on a flat work surface and smash them with the palm of your hand just until they crack—you don't want to completely flatten the potatoes, but you do want to use enough pressure to burst the skins and create nooks and crevices.
- Fry the potatoes in batches, making sure the heat never dips below 350°F (180°C), until the potatoes are golden brown and any loose skins that have pulled away from the potato are marvelously burnished and translucent, 7 to 9 minutes. Transfer the potatoes to paper towels to drain and season with sea salt and pepper. Serve the spuds pronto alongside plenty of the aioli.
Nutrition
Serving: 1portion | Calories: 492kcal | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 38g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Monounsaturated Fat: 27g | Cholesterol: 68mg | Sodium: 1183mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 1g