Karl’s Potato Tapas

I wanted to make a second cold hors d’oeuvre for Myr’s party.  My idea was to make a Spanish tapas that I vaguely remembered from glancing at it in a book many years ago. However, when I looked on-line and in my cookbook on tapas, I could not find anything that was even remotely like what I was thinking about.  So, I should let that stop me?

My idea was a small stack with a marinated boiled potato slice as the base, with red pepper and cucumber slices on top (held in place with a toothpick) and a dab of chive garlic sauce on top. It may not be Spanish, but I think I can still call it a Tapas.

After dinner note: I used potatoes that were about an inch and a half around. These were too big, it took two bite to eat them and the sauce on top went up some peoples nose. . Next time I will use potatoes that are no bigger than one inch in diameter (baby reds or baby Dutch potatoes). You will only get two slices per potato out of these, but they will be easier to eat in one bite.

Karl’s Potato Tapas

Ingredients

12 very small red/Dutch potatoes (no bigger than one inch in diameter)

Marinade

¼ cup olive oil
1½ Tbs. sherry vinegar
1 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. fresh lemon thyme, minced
½ tsp. black pepper
Pinch salt
Pinch dry yellow mustard

1 red sweet pepper, cut into 24 squares
1 Persian cucumber, cut into 24 slices

Dressing

2 Tbs. mayonnaise
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs. minced chive
½ clove garlic, mashed to a fine paste
¼ tsp. black pepper
Pinch salt

Several leaves of Romaine lettuce

Directions

1. Boil the potatoes for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let them stand, covered, in the hot water for another 5 minutes.

2. Drain and fill the pot with cold water to prevent the potatoes from overcooking.

3. Cut the ends off of each potato and slice them into three ¼ inch slices. You should end up with 24 potato slices when you are done.

Tip: I used the discarded potato ends to make a small potato salad for our lunch.

4. Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

5. Lay a layer of potato slices in a plastic container and sprinkle some of the marinade over them.

6. Continue layering and sprinkling until all of the potato slices are in the container. Pour any remaining marinade over the potatoes.

7. Lay the red pepper and cucumber slices over the potatoes and put the lid on the plastic container.

Tip: You want to pick your container so that when all of the vegetables and potatoes included that they are not flopping around or being smashed together when you put on the lid.

8. Flip the container a couple times to distribute the marinade and refrigerate the potatoes for at least 2 hours.

Tip: Flip the container at least once an hour so that all of the vegetables get well coated.

9. Combine the dressing ingredients and let it meld for at least one hour.

10. Assembling the tapas:

a. Remove the rib from the lettuce and arrange them decoratively on your serving plate.

Tip: The lettuce is to prevent the potato slices from sticking to the plate when your guests try to pick them up.

b. Arrange a potato slice on the lettuce.

c. Take a toothpick and skewer a slice of cucumber.

d. Skewer a piece of red pepper and then stick the toothpick into the potato slice.

e. Put a small dab of the dressing over the stack.

f. Repeat until you are out of slices.