Hasselback potatoes

What are hasselback potatoes?

Spiky potatoes, known in Sweden as hasselbackspotatis, are cut like an accordion and basted with herby butter. Before and during the baking. Or is it roasting?

That’s the puzzle: are they roasted or baked, whole or sliced? Roasted you’d say, considering they are cooked in a considerable amount of fat.

But they cook whole which would point towards baked potatoes. Oh – but not quite whole as they are sliced. Yes – sliced, but not quite through. Damn those Swedes!

Where does hasselbacks' name come from?

The name does not mean anything spiky or hedge-hoggy in Swedish, though it could be poetically re-phrased as ‘potatoes with hasselled backs’; ‘hasselled’ being an old Norse word describing wavy, bumpy or ridged (I am totally making this up).

Mundanely, the spuds were first prepared like that (hasselled?!) in the Hasselbacks Hotel in Stockholm. My guess is a dopey commie chef was slicing potatoes for chips and didn’t notice the chopping board was bumpy/there was a cloth underneath them/his knife was chipped.

Thus the sliced-but-not-sliced, whole-but-not-whole, roasted-but-baked potato dish came to be. Yorn desh born der ritt de gitt der gue! Orn desh dee born desh de um bork! bork! bork!

Any special implements to hasselback them?

Now they sell special spoons in Sweden to rest your potato on and insert the knife just to the rim of the spoon, not cutting through the potato. But an ordinary large spoon, wooden or metal, will serve just as well, all you have to be is careful not to slice through.

Anything hasselback

The name is now also universally applied to foodstuffs slit or notched like an accordion – or a hasselback. Hasselback sausages, hasselback tofu, apples or even bread (though I’m more used to calling the latter simply ‘garlic baguette’).

There is also the trend to stuff things into those slits, cheese being the firm favourite, and you can build the whole elaborate spiky dishes around hasselbacks, as seen in my hasselback gratin.

Herby or just buttery?

Once you have not-quite-sliced your potatoes, you can leave them au naturel and just roast them. Bake them. Whatever. But they will be delicious, and not only funky, if you spread some herby butter over them before, during and after roasting (baking). My suggestion is parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme or a similar combination. But garlic? oh yes. Anchovy paste? why not.

One word of advice – do not pick too large potatoes for the hassel-process: they take a surprisingly long time to roast (bake?) and by the time the middle is edibly tender, the ridges may have burnt. Bork! Bork!