Swedish and Portuguese Potatoes (um hellooo heaven!)
Growing up, Portuguese potatoes were my favorite food on the planet. I’d have three helpings, sometimes more. I had a little bit of meat, a papo secos (Portuguese buns of deliciousness) and pass the potatoes please.
Drilling a big hole into the papo secos and stuffing it full of Portuguese potatoes – heeellooo carb lover heaven!
The taters are normally cooked with chourico (the Portuguese version of chorizo). Not exactly part of an low fat diet, but oh man. That saaaauuccee!
It’s always about the sauce. Sauce makes everything wonderful, overcooked food,bad moods and flight delays. In the case of Portuguese potatoes, the sauce is always a red pepper sauce (pimentão). I remember hanging out in my avó and avô’s garage making pepper sauce by hand.
Now, living in Chicago, I’m pretty sure there are NO Portuguese people here. I’ve checked. I haven’t even been able to find the sauce on Amazon (if you find it, PLEASE let me know!). So every time my dad comes to visit I ask, “Got any sauce for me?”
When I received my first Home Chef order of hasselback potatoes, and a tip of the hat to Ashlee Piper’s recipe, I learned it was a Swedish dish. Looking to use my new pepper sauce in a way that didn’t involve chourico, I arranged a Swedish and Portuguese potato marriage.
Crispy, spicy, garlicky, delicious.
Feel free to add a vegan butter like Earth Balance. If you can’t find pimentão, using red pepper chili sauce from the Asian section will also work.
Ingredients
Serves 4, add a salad or veg to make it a meal
- 4 russet, gold or Yukon potatoes, washed, leave the skins on
- 2 tbsp. pimentão sauce
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
- Few sprigs fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 425F
- With the potatoes on a stable surface slice them horizontally leaving about ¼ inch at the bottom to hold the potatoes together
- Carefully pry open some slices on each potato and stuff a garlic slice, using one clove per potato (or less if you don’t like garlic…peace out vampires!)
- Put about ½ tbsp. of pimentão on each potato, rubbing it around the top and into the cracks and season with salt and pepper to taste. Easy on the salt if your pimentão is already salted, you might not need any.
- Arrange on an oven save dish or pan covered with foil or parchment paper and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked through and crispy on the outside
- Plate each potato and top with fresh parsley, serve with a salad or other veg
Want more recipes with the Portuguese nectar of the gods? Try these:
