Hasselback Sweet Potatoes Three Ways

The first time we ever tried hasselback potatoes, it was not a huge success.

First of all, everyone decided they could do a better job than anyone else at cutting the suckers up.  I think at one point, we had every cutting board and every knife in the kitchen hasselbacking at the same time.  It was like some weird gameshow competition to see who could slice the potatoes the thinnest without slipping and accidentally cutting the potato in half.

Contestant one was slicing too thick, while the challenger was slicing too thin, and some of the team members were going at them like they were wielding a machete in the Amazon.  Pieces of potato were everywhere!  Oh, the carnage!!!

After the first few minutes though, and lots of cursing when random slices would come out of the potato with the knife, or whole hunks would break off, the panel of judges decided on a winner….our nephew!

And what fabulous prize did he win?

A new car? Trip around the world? New washer and dryer? A year’s supply of pickled beets? Nope.

The job of hasselbacking every potato at every family gathering from now till the end of time!!!! (Cue the confetti drop–Woot woot!!!)

More importantly, he learned a valuable lesson: Never do anything better than anyone else unless you want to end up doing it FOREVER!

Fortunately for him, I decided to take another crack at them myself (all right, more like 3 or 4 cracks, but at least I ate all my mistakes), and I learned a couple of things that made all the difference:

1. They don’t need to be paper thin.  In fact, I actually got better results when they weren’t and
2. I don’t try to hasselback the whole potato.  I cut it into chunks so that people can have one or two or three, and it doesn’t matter if I cut through at any one place.

I guess this means that from now on, this will be my job forever.

Ingredients:

• 3 large potatoes, cut in thirds and hasselbacked * see note
• 9 Tablespoons “butter”, melted and divided into thirds
• 2 teaspoons of powdered sage
• 2 teaspoons powdered garlic
• 2 teaspoons lime zest

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. In three small bowls, combine 3 Tablespoons of the butter with 2 teaspoons of seasoning (3 TBS butter + sage, 3 TBS butter + garlic, 3 TBS butter + lime) Or, you can go crazy and combine the sage and garlic with 4-5 TBS Butter and enjoy the combo flavor!
3. Put the potatoes in separate baking dishes (one 3-piece potato in each dish) and pour the individual toppings over each one separately.  
4. Roast the potatoes for 30-45 minutes, till tender inside and crunchy on the outside, basting with the butter sauce  every 15 minutes.

• To hasselback, put the flattest side of the potato down on a cutting board.  Using a very sharp, thin knife, cut approximately 1/4″ slices (or slightly thicker) from the top to approximately 3/4 of the way down the potato.

Enjoy!