Archive for June, 2010


Idaho® Potato Gnocchi

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Q. Is it hard to make potato gnocchi?
A. You touched on one of my very favorite restaurant potato dishes. Gnocchi is pretty straightforward, but requires a dry potato (high solids) to make it in the traditional manner. These days you often see pumpkin gnocchi, sweet potato gnocchi and even Yukon Gold gnocchi. Each requires quite a bit of practice as the excess moisture content can ruin a recipe unless you have the experience to made modifications as you work the dough. It is much better to stick to an Idaho® russet potato and add in the flavorings as desired. Gnocchi in the United States starts out with a short list of simple ingredients: eggs, Idaho® potatoes, cheese, and flour. Here is a picture to illustrate:

idaho_potato_gnocchi

First let’s start out with a typical recipe for gnocchi:

Potato Gnocchi [link]

potato_gnocchi

And this is simple but with truffle flavors added:

Gnocchi con Fontina e Tartufo Idaho® Potato Dumplings with Fontina Cheese & Truffle [link]

gnocchi_con_fontina_e_tartufo_idaho_potato_dumplings

And, here is one using left over mashed Idaho® potatoes:

Basic Gnocchi [link]

This one has a New Orleans flavor:

Creole Cream Cheese Idaho® Potato Gnocchi with Crawfish [link]

creole_cream_cheese_idaho_potato_gnocchi

And finally one made with ricotta cheese:

Potato Gnocchi with Ricotta [link]

potato_gnocchi_with_ricotta

Posted in Foodservice, Q & A, Recipes

Wake up Breakfast Sales

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Q. Do you have any suggestions to wake up my breakfast sales?

A. Yes, let’s start with hash browns. These are going upscale, by adding in crab, lobster or shrimp.  They are also picking up a lot of momentum by combining flavors that used to be compatible but were separated on the plate.  For example, a nice slice of ham, home fries or hash browns and scrambled eggs are usually sold ala carte or bundled together in a meal deal. With the cost of protein, another option is the ubiquitous omelet or wrap.  Here is one that is easy to do ahead of time and is perfect for cafeterias or breakfasts that tend to be quick service. Try this:

Idaho® Potato Sausage and Egg Gratin

idaho_potato_sausage_and_egg_gratinYield: (1) – 2″ Hotel Pan

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds Idaho® Potatoes, steamed, cut into 1 “dice, cooled
  • 2 pounds Fresh Spinach, Steamed, squeezed very dry
  • 3 cups Red Onions, diced 1/4 inch
  • 4 cups Roasted Red peppers, diced 1/2″
  • 2 ounces Olive Oil
  • 1 pound Ground Breakfast sausage cooked, drained
  • 12 each Eggs
  • 1 1/2 quarts Heavy Cream
  • 1 T Seasoning salt
  • ¼ t White Pepper
  • Dash Nutmeg
  • Dash Cayenne Pepper
  • 2 ounces Grated Parmesan
  • 1/8 t Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 t Dry Mustard
  • 1 T Gulden’s Brown Mustard

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
  2. Heat the olive oil on a hot griddle, add the red onions and cook until tender.
  3. Add the potatoes, and cook until lightly brown.
  4. Add the roasted red peppers, and drained spinach, and cooked drained sausage, season to taste with salt and pepper, mix well, remove from heat, reserve.
  5. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs. Add the remaining ingredients, mix well.
  6. Spray a 2″ hotel pan with food release spray. Place the potato mixture inside the pan, and pour the egg mixture over top, spreading out until evenly dispersed.
  7. Bake at 325°, until the gratin is set, approx. 1 hour. Serve.

Or homemade potato donuts, using Idaho potato flour:

Idaho® Potato Doughnuts (Fritter Style)

Recipe courtesy of * Sourced by Nonpareil

idaho_potato_doughnuts-fritter_style-Yield: MAKES ABOUT 12 donuts

Ingredients

  • 58 ounces Bread Flour
  • 19 ounces Idaho® Potato Flour *
  • 4.75 ounces Sugar
  • 0.5 ounces Salt
  • 2.5 ounces Egg Yolk
  • 10.75 ounces Shortening/Crisco:
  • 1 ounce Instant Active Dry Yeast:
  • 41 ounces Ice Water
  • 0.5 ounces Vanilla NOTE: do not over work dough, gluten structure is not needed.

Directions

  1. Place dry ingredients into a suitably large bowl, and with a wire whip, blend the ingredients together thoroughly.
  2. Add to a mixing bowl, add the liquid ingredients and the shortening and mix at medium speed just until smooth dough is achieved. The target dough temperature is 78 to 80°.
  3. Allow the dough to ferment for one hour,
  4. Then divide the dough into smaller pieces that you can easily roll out. Form each of these pieces into a large ball and allow to rest at room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes, then roll out and cut to desired size/shape.
  5. Place cut dough pieces onto a frying screen or onto a flour dusted canvas cloth to proof. These donuts can be proofed at room temperature in a draft free area for about 40 minutes before frying at 365°. Note: Since the ingredients are given in weight measurements, you can make smaller dough sizes very easily by simply dividing the ingredient amounts.
  6. SHAKE IN BAGS WITH POWDERED SUGAR AND CINNAMON SUGAR

Posted in Foodservice, Recipes

Explaining Idaho® Potatoes to Customers

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Q. What’s your favorite way to describe an Idaho® potato on the menu or when we have our servers explain a giant baked Idaho® potato to our guests?

A. I have two examples that I have remembered years after first hearing about them, but first, let me digress a moment.  When I had a restaurant we had a new dessert which was basically the equivalent of a chocolate fudge brownie with a liquid molten center that was scooped out into a ball and then rolled in fresh grated cocoanut and served on a pool of dark chocolate with a hint of orange liquour.  The ball shape was also covered with freshly whipped cream.  This was a lot of detail to try to describe to a guest. One of my part-time waiters, an aspiring actor while attending college too, described it as “angels dancing on your tongue”.  Of course he won the waitstaff prize for selling the most in a month. People almost always ordered one for the table.

A few years ago a group of Commissioners and the field staff went into the Gibson’s restaurant in Downtown Chicago.  It’s right across from the original Morton’s Steakhouse and yet it does more neighborhood business and also has a higher restaurant total volume.  The waiter, taking a cue from the owners, knew that locals would only come back if they didn’t think they were being wasteful of the huge portions and so he often suggested sharing sides, appetizers or desserts.  When the cart came out with the beautifully displayed cuts of meat and vegetable sides he started off describing a twice stuffed potato. “First, the chef takes a beautiful one pound Idaho® Russet Burbank potato and bakes it for nearly an hour until the outer skin is crispy.  We then hollow it out, combine the mashed potato with sour cream and top with a slab of aged Wisconsin cheddar cheese (emphasizing each word slowly) and mix it up. The mashed potato mixture is put back into the baked potato to heat until the cheddar cheese melts.  Fresh chives are added and then I bring it fresh from the oven to your table”.  Try not ordering one… especially if he was turned down and said “how about if I divide it up for the four of you?”

Another example, which I have to credit to a blogger Bill Bence, who wrote about the restaurant chain Toffenneti’s of NYC and Chicago in the late forties, is this written description on the printed menu:

Giant baked Idaho® potatoes with butter and sour cream were a trademark of the place. They baked in the window.  It wasn’t just a potato,  but a “bulging beauty grown in the ashes of extinct volcanoes, scrubbed and washed, then baked in a whirlwind of tempestuous fire until the shell crackles with bitterness.”  Several food historians credit him for being among the first to serve the over-sized baked potato as well as for making Idaho and potatoes synonymous.

Try this with something you want to promote next time.

Posted in Foodservice, History, Q & A