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Potato Bites with Smoked Salmon |  |
No Fork Required! Equally At Home for an Elegant Buffet or a Rustic Farm Table. Weight Watchers Friendly. Low Carb. High Protein.
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"Let the skie raine Potatoes,"
for what would we be without you
— lost in a sea of fried turnips,
mashed beets, roasted parsnips?
Poor Potatoes
The poor potato, both loved and devoured but also avoided and even reviled.
When I visited the St. Paul farmers market in Minnesota a couple of years ago, the stands held dozens of potato varieties, all sizes and colors and nubbly shapes.
More and more, I realize how our industrialized food system cheats us, especially, of variety. It's a wonder, that system, feeding much of the world. But there are costs.
Where to Find Very Small Potatoes
Tiny Potato Bites start with – no surprise – tiny potatoes. They are most easily found this time of year as "new" potatoes. I pick through the potato bin for the smallest potatoes all about the same size, glad for instant portion size management.
But word to the wise: don't assume that you can walk into any grocery store and just-like-that, find tiny little potatoes. In fact, I tend to work the other way around: when I happen onto tiny potatoes, I know I'll make this appetizer.
One thing that helps is a new company called The Little Potato Company. [Not sponsored, just a product I've noticed.] Their creamer potatoes are slightly bigger than I prefer but make it much easier to make Potato Bites on a whim!
St. Louisans, believe it or not, the best place to find tiny red potatoes is Summit Produce at the Kirkwood Farmers Market, open seven days a week during the season.
All that searching is worth it. To quote guests at a recent party, "These Potato Bites are GOOD!"
For Easy Assembly, Use a Mini Muffin Tin
A mini muffin pan works perfectly for assembling and carrying Potato Bites. The potato halves fit just perfectly into those mini muffin cups!
More Bite-Size Appetizers: Finger Food, No Fork Required!
We love to give parties – and people know to arrive hungry! When it's a big group, we tend to be super casual, it's definitely potluck, everyone brings a dish to share and everyone congregates near the big kitchen table that's spread with appetizers.
With both casual parties and slightly more formal gatherings, I lean toward small bites and finger food, no plates or forks for us, thank you very much!
- Bacon-Wrapped Dried Apricots
- Easy Shrimp Bites
- Mini Crab Bites
- Olivada & Olivada Appetizers
- Smoked Whitefish Spread on Cucumber
- Stuffed Mushrooms with Cauliflower & Smoked Gouda
For still-more bite-size appetizers and finger food, check Kitchen Parade's appetizer recipes, just scroll down to the specific collection. Fun, eh?!
Resources
- I wrote my own Ode to Potatoes, Finnish potatoes very specifically – they're amazing! and it's not just me who thinks so. You'll find it all along with my recipe for Finnish Summer Potato Salad.
- One year, we gave a big party at Midsummer, the longest day of the year celebrated across the Nordic countries. Here's what we made, it's a Midsummer Party Menu. Did we serve Potato Bites with Smoked Salmon? Of course!
POTATO BITES with SMOKED SALMON
Time to table: 2 hours
Makes 24, easily halved or doubled
- 12 tiny red potatoes, scrubbed well
-
FILLING
- 4 tablespoons (55g) sour cream
- 4 teaspoons minced red onion
- 2 teaspoons capers, chopped if large
- 1 teaspoon prepared horseradish
- 3-1/2 ounces (100g) smoked salmon, cut in tiny pieces
-
GARNISH
- An additional 1/2 ounce (15g) smoked salmon
- Fresh dill, chopped, optional but pretty
POTATOES Boil the potatoes in well-salted water until cooked clear through, drain, cool and refrigerate.
FILLING Stir together the filling ingredients and refrigerate to let the flavors meld until ready to fill.
ASSEMBLE & GARNISH Up to an hour or so before serving, slice the potatoes in half and scoop out the centers. Use a piping bag (for a neat appearance) or a spoon (for something more rustic) to fill the potato halves with Filling. (After each half is filled, I use a mini muffin pan to keep the potatoes upright for refrigerating and carrying to a party, say.) Top with a bit of the additional salmon and if you like, some fresh dill. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
MAKE-AHEAD TIPS This is an excellent appetizer to make in advance, then to assemble two or three hours before serving, even just before serving. A day before serving, cook the potatoes and mix the Filling and refrigerate separately. The day of serving, fill the potato halves and garnish. So simple, this!
A grapefruit spoon’s serrated edge makes it ever so useful for scooping out vegetables to stuff. One costs only a couple of dollars and comes in handy often. To keep the potato halves from tipping over, slice off a tiny bit from the round side to create an impromptu "stand". No piping bag? No problem. Just spoon the filling into a small freezer bag and snip off a corner. Smoked salmon can be pricey. I get it at Trader Joe’s where a small package fits my budget. Hot-smoked salmon works but our favorite is the cured salmon some times called "lox" (as in lox and bagels) or "gravlax". It's generally pinker and wetter than hot-smoked salmon.
WEIGHT WATCHERS POINTS Old Points 1 & PointsPlus 1 & SmartPoints 1 & Freestyle 1 More Small-Bite Appetizer Recipes
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(helping home cooks save money on groceries)~ potatoes ~
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~ sour cream ~
~ capers ~
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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences.
Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.
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Another way to save on smoked salmon is something my mom does - when she goes to the fish store, instead of buying the smoked salmon slices, the kind you might find in a prepackaged thingy in a grocery store, she buys the trimmings for a fraction of the price. Same fish, same quality, but without the pretty shape. If you're going to put it on a bagel, though - or in a recipe like this one! - you don't need a big wide slab anyway.
ReplyDeleteIs it ok to substitute shallots for the red onion?
ReplyDeleteCamille ~ thanks for the great tip, I'm going to check the fish store next visit
ReplyDeleteDavid ~ Red onion are 'traditional' and add color but for the onion flavor alone, shallots will certainly do the trick! Enjoy!
Is the smoked Salmon in the potato bites cold smoked lox or the regular garden variety of smoked salmon?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous ~ Hmm. I'm not sure, actually, which means that it's like what you call 'garden variety', yes? I just use smoked salmon from either the fish store or as recently as this weekend, for another salmon appetizer, smoked salmon pieces which are quite inexpensive at Trader Joe's.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that on some of the receipes that there are no actual serving sizes listed!!! Would that be per ounce or what. Now on these Potato and Salmon Bites (which I intend to make for Thanksgiving) there is somewhat of a listing, per half. So I am guessing that a serving on other receipes is per ounce. These are nice receipes though. I bookmark things I like!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous ~ Will you let me take exception to this, please? Unlike 99% of the food sites on the Internet, I go huge effort to provide meaningful information about how much a recipe makes, how many points in what I consider a serving. I've seen SO many recipes that say nothing more than "serves 4" and turns out that means 10 ounces of meat person, which is HUGE. Instead, I say, "makes 10 cups" and then provide nutrition information per cup or per half cup or something useful, withOUT assuming I know how much an individual is going to actually eat. What I can say is that NO recipe uses weights for serving size.
ReplyDeletePS Great choice for a Thanksgiving appetizer, I just love those little potatoes. You might watch for tiny potatoes, at least here in Missouri, they are hard to find consistently. Small fingerlings would work, but I love the color contrast with the red potatoes.
I'm so glad I don't live near enough to be a taste tester in your kitchen—I'd be eating good stuff ALL the time!
ReplyDelete