CANARIAN WRINKLY SEA SALT POTATOES AND MOJO ROJO SAUCE

PAPAS ARRUGADES

These beautiful wrinkly crispy ish sea salt potatoes are native to the Canary Islands I remember the first time I had them on Lanzarote way back in the 1990’s slightly crisp chewy salty wrinkly skin leading way to a salty creamy soft potato centre, I was hooked!  The Flat Boat restaurant, a old double garage that just had a white wash over the breeze block walls, tables and chairs, a bar and open kitchen owned and run by 4 local fisherman brothers who fished during the day and cooked and sold what they caught every evening from their Flat Boat garage restaurant, their wives and family were the cooks and waiting staff, it is a fantastic honest all about the freshness and localness of the food place.

These were a keeper from that day onwards and served with the most amazing native Mojo Rojo or Mojo Verde sauce, I was on a mission to learn how to cook them make the sauces which are simple but so flavoursome, this was also the first place I was served Aioli and again I could not get enough of it.  Several local cookbooks came home with me along with the lesson on how to cook these potatoes from fisherman Pepe’s lovely wife.

Cooking Method

Originally these potatoes were cooked in sea water, but nowadays they are cooked in heavily salted water.  You simmer the potatoes in the salted water and reduce the water until evaporated where you then leave the potatoes to slightly crisp and wrinkle in the dry salty pan, this creates the chewy slightly crisp salty skin giving way to the salty creaming potato centre.

Ingredients 

1kg Canary new potatoes

1/4 cup of Himalayan sea salt 

1 1/2 ltrs of cold water

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan bring up to a simmer and reduce the liquid, you will end up with salt sludge in the bottom of the pan once all the water has reduced, check the potatoes are fork tender cooked the turn the heat down and leave to cook a for a further 5 minutes with the lid on, careful not to burn the salt or potatoes, that’s it serve with a mojo or aioli sauce, recipes below.

Mojo Rojo (red)

100ml olive oil

6 garlic cloves

2 red peppers diced

1 tbsp sweet paprika 

1/2 tsp cumin

1 red chilli optional

1 slice sour dough bread torn

50-100ml red wine vinegar

Sea salt

Mojo Verde (green)

1/2 cup parsley or coriander

100ml olive oil

6 cloves garlic

2 green peppers diced

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1/2 tsp cumin

1 red chilli optional

1 slice sour dough bread torn

50-100ml red wine vinegar

Sea salt

Place the garlic, peppers, olive oil, paprika, cumin and chilli in a food processor and blitz to a smooth sauce, add the torn bread and 50ml red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt, blitz again to a smooth sauce, taste and add more vinegar and olive oil to your taste, maybe more chilli for a hotter sauce or more garlic.  You can make this the day ahead and store in the fridge, bring out of the fridge 1 hour before using and stir well once the olive oil in the sauce has come up to room temperature.