Baked new potatoes & tofu. With roasted garlic white bean hummus

Attention, please! An exciting moment: it’s time for new potatoes! Subtle and juicy, with a delicate thin skin. I could eat them simply boiled in salted water, sprinkled with dill and a little olive oil, or I could create a mayonnaise salad with new potatoes and cucumber, or I could also grab a bunch of coriander and make a simple spring curry with new potatoes, asparagus and kohlrabi. I could do all that. But what did I do instead? I baked them with a bit of starch and balsamic vinegar, which created a delicious, sweet, sour and salty crust layer. I decided to put the potatoes on top of a creamy white-bean hummus. And since I had baked the potatoes, why not twist up the white-bean hummus by adding some incredibly tasty roasted garlic to it?

This is not a difficult dish and there is not going to be a lot of washing up either. These simple ingredients can be used to prepare a filling dinner that somehow combines both the homely and the more sophisticated culinary worlds.

  • 1 kg of small new potatoes
  • 1 cube of natural tofu (200g) [can be omitted, more info below *]
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • salt (I used one flat tsp)
  • 2 tbsp potato (or corn) starch
  • 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 full tsp of sweet syrup (agave, date, or rice) or sugar
  • 1 cup white beans (or drained beans from one can)
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 5 cloves of garlic
  • salt (I used one flat tsp)
  • pepper
  • a little water

To serve:

  • dill

If you don’t have or don’t want to use tofu, you can skip it or replace it with a thickly diced white onion. It also will be delicious.

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Wash the potatoes, drain the tofu and dice it. Arrange the potatoes and tofu In a large baking dish or directly on a baking tray lined with paper.

2. Add the olive oil and massage it into the potatoes and tofu with your hands. Then sprinkle it all with salt and potato starch and massage the ingredients once more so that the starch reaches all of the nooks and crannies.

3. Put the potatoes and tofu in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.

4. Meanwhile, in any small baking dish, place the unpeeled cloves of garlic. Massage them with a little bit of olive oil and place them in a preheated oven for 15 minutes.

5. Prepare the hummus: blend the beans with the olive oil and lemon juice using a hand blender. Add the salt, pepper and baked garlic. Add a splash or two of water and blend it again until it is velvety creamy.

6. Let’s go back to the potatoes: in a glass, mix the balsamic vinegar and sweet syrup. Take the baked potatoes out of the oven, pour the prepared mix over them and shake the dish vigorously to let the mix cover the ingredients. Place the dish back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes so the vinegar and sugar can caramelise nicely.

Serving: spread a tablespoon or two of the garlic bean hummus on the plate, place a few hot balsamic tofu potatoes on it, garnish it with fresh dill and sprinkle with some pepper.

Still hungry?