Cook’s Notebook: Smashed potato recipe a reminder of mom

Vicki Carpenter of Spokane Valley is in search of an heirloom – her mother’s smashed potatoes with watercress.

The dish in question was cooked on the stovetop and featured potatoes, watercress, bacon, onion and vinegar. It was served with the consistency of rustic mashed potatoes.

“My mother passed away in 1997 and she used to make it for me all of the time,” Carpenter said in her e-mail. “She always wanted to give me the recipe, but I said I so enjoyed her making it for me I didn’t want to know her secret.”

A look through my cookbook collection and the Internet did not reveal a recipe that exactly matched Carpenter’s long-lost dish. However, potatoes, bacon, onion and vinegar frequently crop up in recipes for warm German-style potato salad. It’s not much of a stretch to turn a warm potato salad into a smashed potato side dish.

On the BBC’s Good Food Middle East Web site, www.bbcgoodfoodme.com/bbcGF/, I found a good candidate made with new potatoes, bacon, sour cream, vinegar and watercress. Another recipe, for Red-Skin Potato Salad with Honey Dill Dressing, from the National Honey Board ( www.honey.com), also fit the bill in a lot of ways.

So I set about combining the recipes and mashing the potatoes. The overall results? Pretty tasty. The bacon imparted a lovely saltiness to the potatoes, while the vinegar gave a hearty kick. I’m a big fan of German potato salad, so this is a dish I can see making again.

I’m not sure if this recipe will exactly match the one Carpenter seeks, but it should give her a good place to start. I do hope she’s able to discover her mother’s long-lost secret.

Basically, what I’ve done is added onion to the original BBC recipe, and increased the amount of vinegar from 2 teaspoons to 3 tablespoons. The dressing base is sour cream, but crème fraîche is a good substitute; it’ll have less tang than the sour cream. A tablespoon or two of mustard – Dijon, whole grain or honey – would be a good addition to the dressing, as well.

Smashed Potatoes with Watercress and Bacon

8 slices bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

1 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and quartered, or left whole if new

5 ounces sour cream, a scant 2/3 cup

3 tablespoons cider vinegar, or more to taste

One bunch watercress, leaves roughly chopped

Ground black pepper, to taste

Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp; remove from pan to drain. Pour off bacon grease, reserving about 3 tablespoons. Return bacon grease to pan set over medium heat and add onion. Cook, stirring often, until softened, about five minutes. Remove to bowl and allow to cool slightly.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain in colander; return potatoes to pot to dry and stay warm.

Combine sour cream, vinegar, black pepper and onion mixture and toss with the potatoes. Crumble bacon strips and add to the bowl. Add watercress and combine. Roughly mash the potato mixture, leaving plenty of chunks. Taste and adjust seasonings, and serve warm.

Yield: 4 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 444 calories, 27 grams fat (11 grams saturated, 54 percent fat calories), 16 grams protein, 36 grams carbohydrate, 59 milligrams cholesterol, 3 grams dietary fiber, 679 milligrams sodium.