Smashed Idaho® Potatoes with Sunchokes, Roasted Garlic & Spinach
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds Idaho® potatoes, washed but unpeeled
- 1 head garlic
- ½ pound sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
- 1 ½ cups heavy cream, divided into ½ cup measure and 1 cup measure portions
- 4 tablespoons Country Crock® Margarine
- 3 cups packed baby spinach
- ice water bath for blanched baby spinach
- additional salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- Make potatoes: Place 2 pounds of unpeeled, cleaned, Idaho® potatoes in cold water. Heat water to just below boiling. Water will be steaming but not moving. Cook potatoes in steaming water until fork tender: about 1 1/2 hours.
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Toss sunchokes in olive oil and salt and pepper. Place on sheet pan.
- While potatoes are cooking on stovetop, roast sunchokes in oven at 350 degrees F until soft. Also place head of garlic in square of aluminum foil and roast in oven next to sunchokes until soft.
- Remove garlic from oven and set aside.
- Turn oven down to 325 degrees F.
- Remove sunchokes from oven and puree with 1/2 cup cream, using immersion blender, or food processor.
- When fork tender, remove potatoes from water. Place in warm 325 degree F oven to dry potato skins.
- While potato skins dry, heat second pot of water for blanching spinach, on stovetop to boiling.
- While waiting for spinach water to boil, in a small saucepot, melt margarine with remaining cup of cream until hot. Set aside.
- Blanch spinach in boiling water for two minutes. Using a strainer, remove spinach from water and plunge into ice water. Squeeze out water. Puree spinach using a food processor or immersion blended. Set aside.
- Remove potatoes from oven. Leave skins on. In a large pot, smash potatoes with a potato masher adding small amounts of the hot cream/margarine mixture as you go until potatoes are fluffy. Add garlic and sunchoke puree and smash more. Fold in pureed spinach. Adjust seasoning adding salt and pepper to taste.