Beverly Hills Potatoes with Pesto Butter

13.05.2013 Jackie Dodd-Mallory (Senior Editor) 25 Comments

I’m cooking on The Today show on Wednesday.

I wish I was cool enough to have a witty lead in and build up to the exciting news, but I’m just going to digitally blurt it out:

I’m cooking on The Today Show, in New York, on Wednesday. I’ll be battling it out with two other cooks in The Joyful Cook-off for supreme Healthy One Pot Meal domination, although the big prize is merely bragging rights. With a free trip to New York, and the opportunity to cook on The Today show, I feel like I’ve already won.

Back to these potatoes, that will forever be known as Beverly Hills potatoes. I went to Bazaar in Beverly Hills with a friend for her birthday a few months ago. The food was beautiful, intricate and far beyond my culinary abilities. Then there were these lovely and delicious miniature potatoes that had been salt roasted, served on tooth picks with a side of pesto butter. It’s a good thing I choose to fall in love with the one thing I could actually duplicate at home, although there were these fantastic Japanese Taco’s I’ll need to stop thinking about because I’ll never be able to figure out how to make those.

The hardest thing about this dish is finding these miniature potatoes, although I have seen them in several markets. They are far smaller that the baby red potatoes that you might think of, closer to the size of large grapes. I’ve seen them called "teeny tiny potatoes" and "miniature potatoes," either way, they are really small.

Now I’m hooked. I’ve served them as a side dish, and also put toothpicks in the and served them as an appetizer.

And this is what happens when I try to photograph anything while tater is awake. She was laying down the potatoes with toothpicks in them saying, "Potatoes are tired boys."

She’s the best.

Beverly Hills Potatoes with Pesto Butter

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs miniature potatoes
• 1 to 2 cups kosher salt
• 1/4 cup pesto
• 2 tbs melted butter

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Wash the potatoes well, prick each one with a fork.
3. Place potatoes in a loaf pan. Pour salt over potatoes until most of the potatoes are covered.
4. Roast for 25-35 minutes or until fork tender. Break up the salt crust with a fork, pour into a large bowl or pot, remove the potatoes (insert one tooth pick into each potato if serving as an appetizer).
5. To make the pesto butter, combine the pesto and melted butter. Serve alongside the potatoes.