Roasted Fingerling Potato Salad

How we make it.

*serves 4 to 6*

3 pounds fingerling potatoes
4 strips bacon, cooked and diced with grease saved
1 shallot, minced
1 ½ teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced and divided
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Dressing

2 tablespoons Dijon
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
½ cup creme fraiche
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and roast bacon on a half sheet pan until lightly crisp, maybe about 15 minutes. Remove bacon from the grease and set aside to cool. Leave the bacon grease as it is in the sheet pan. Wash the potatoes and slice them lengthwise. Place potatoes cut side down into the bacon grease on the half sheet pan. Sprinkle the potatoes with a teaspoon of minced rosemary, salt and pepper, to taste. Roast for 40-45 minutes until crisp and cooked through. Once potatoes are cooked add directly into a large bowl with minced shallot and diced bacon. Whisk all dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and pour over warm potatoes with another ½ teaspoon of minced rosemary. Stir to combine and refrigerate for a few hours until cold. Serve cold or room temperature.

Why we make it.

You know, I've been making all those veggie trays lately, so I've had a lot of fingerlings lying around.  They're my preferred potato. There's something sophisticated about the way they beg for a fat base and an acid splash. I love their shape. I love that some are purple. I love their earthiness and the way they roast up crisp. They're the one for me. Today I found myself with a Memorial Day picnic to go to, an empty fridge and fruit bowl of fingerlings. Potato salad it is. A few extra strips of Saturday morning bacon and the grease it was cooked made the fat base. Ever present stores of vinegar and mustard gave that acid pop. Creamed up with the dregs of the creme fraiche I bought for something else sometime else. And animated with the savory comfort of some last leg rosemary and a shallot. Lightly dressed but ready for a party, this potato salad is simply some of my favorite flavors. The ones I always have around when I have nothing else around. And that's quite literally why I made it.