Herbes de Provence Hasselback Potatoes

Crispy herbes de Provence hasselback potatoes with gruyere cheese. Delicious, creamy, herbaceous and incredibly classy, these bites are worth the hassle!

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Ok so yes, I am that asshole that decided to hasselback a baby potato. I never thought I would do, but it was worth it. Plus, herbes de Provence seem fancy. Why not fancy up a potato by making it a bite sized herbes de Provence hasselback potato.

I bought a bottle of vermouth and really wanted to figure out an interesting use for it. And honestly, any extra excuse to eat more potatoes is not a bad idea. But the catch, I wanted it bite sized. I wanted to hold the entire potato in one hand and the Vermouth White Wine Spritzer cocktail in the other. Use smaller potatoes to allow this to work. Larger potatoes will be harder to hold in one hand. And I wanted to make sure it was manageable as an appetizer. I made this little potato a hasselback potato because it looks cuter. But honestly a smooshed potato would work just as well. I also have a little trick to get the potatoes nice and fluffy on the inside, but crispy outside. This trick can be used for regular potatoes as well ;). 

Since it is the fall, I wanted to keep with the warmth and comfort of an herby roasted potato. I knew I wanted to pair it with a cocktail and needed a bridge ingredient. So, I chose herbes de Provence, because honestly lavender is a dream to pair with a cocktail. But I also knew I didn’t want the potato to be carbs and richness. I wanted a sour to cut through the fat (even though cheese is technically adding more fat). The beautiful sour you get from gruyere cheese adds a nice depth to this potato. Can you sub other cheeses? Yes, but full disclosure it may not pair as nicely with the herbs or the Vermouth White Wine Spritzer. However you serve, these herbes de Provence hasselback potatoes are worth it!

How to Hasselback a Potato

Making a hasselback potato just feels like, well a hassle. But it isn’t terrible! It does get a little bit fiddly towards the ends, but honestly it isn’t bad. If you cut through it or some don’t come out perfect don’t worry they will still taste good! The way to hasselback a potato is to place the potato on a cutting board and lay chopsticks or wooden spoons on either side. This keeps the potato in place while cutting. The chopsticks also helps prevent your knife from going all the way through the potato. This does take a bit of time, but it is worth it!

If you do not feel like hasselbacking the potato, just follow the recipe and either smash or chop them into smaller pieces or smash them to expose more surface area to make it crispier. The more oil and the crispier they will be, and crispy is where it is at!

So the trick to get the potatoes nice and fluffy on the inside and nice and crispy on the outside? The microwave! I use this trick to get nice and crispy potatoes in the oven (or I boil them ahead of time). However, if you let the potato go too long it’ll get too mushy. Mushy is great when you want really crispy potatoes. But it is terrible when you are trying to keep them together like in this recipe. A partially cooked potato still holds the slices, but allows it to get crispier.

So, I went for it and put the potato on high for 45 seconds. I felt like 30 seconds wouldn’t be enough and 1 minute would be too long so I split the difference. And I will be honest it worked… with one potato. But I wanted to adapt it to work with more. For 10 potatoes, I did in two batches and upped the time a bit to 3 minutes. Be sure to poke holes in the potatoes to allow the release of steam through the skin to prevent an explosion.

Herbes de Provence Hasselback Potatoes Recipe Notes & Substitutions

• Potatoes– I use a baby dutch yellow potato but a fingerling or a small potato would likely also work. Do not try this with sweet potatoes and expect the same result. Sweet potatoes have a higher sugar content which does not hold up quite as well for a hasselback. If you use a different potato just monitor the cooking time a little bit more in the prep step and when crisping in the oven.
• Oil/Ghee– So this along with the potato is another important part. I tend to use a combo of avocado oil and ghee, because that’s what I like. A more traditional hasselback would use butter. Use what you like as long as it works for you (however if using sesame oil I’d pair a different cocktail with it and change up the seasoning). The more you use the better it’ll taste and the crispier it’ll be (within reason, don’t start a grease fire!). 
• Herbes de Provence– Herbes de Provence make these herbes de Provence hasselback potatoes interesting and herbaceous. I chose herbes de Provence as a bridge ingredient and they are more fun than one single herb. However, if you do not have that then use thyme. Thyme will still work and taste amazing with the cocktail. You could also add fresh parsley on the top before serving if you wanted a pop of freshness but sometimes that gets everywhere in an appetizer so I chose not to add it. The herbs bring more flavor and really make the herbes de Provence hasselback potato bites incredible.
• Salt– Need it, gotta have it, don’t even think about omitting it.
• Gruyere– I love gruyere because it lends that beautiful sour tang to get through the butte rand the potato richness. It adds depth to the flavor and really balances the bite, however if you do not enjoy gruyere or swiss because of the tang you can substitute another cheese. Parmesan should work well as a replacement. If you do however use the parmesan dust in the green bottle, put it on with like 1-2 minutes left to warm it up. I recommend not using this but hey, if you want it go with it.   
• Lemon zest– This is another amazing addition to this that elevates the dish. You can skip it if you want, but if you’re making the cocktail that pairs with this you will absolutely have a lemon on had so just zest a bit up. No zester? Fine, use a veggie peeler and peel a small bit of the rind and then chop it up as fine as you can possibly make it. Or leave it off if you really want, it just does make it better. 
• Note on Garlic– Would fresh garlic be AMAZING in this recipe? YES!! Absolutely!! But sometimes you don’t want to cut garlic, or have large chunks of garlic, and sometimes you really do. So if you want fresh garlic use that but I went powder and it was great. Conversely use garlic infused oil.
• Oven temperature– I ALWAYS roast my veggies at higher heat with LOTS of oil to get them super crispy. It seriously makes the veggies addictive, I have eaten an entire bowl of roasted veggies and it was incredible, find that recipe here and the drink paired here. I roast these potatoes at 425^oF. I do not have a convection oven, so if you use a convection oven reduce the temperature 25^oF to 400^oF.