Stubby yet slightly long; waxy yet firm; small-ish yet large enough to be sliced before cooking, fingerling potatoes come in many shapes and colors. They can be yellow, red, pink, a bluish, and deep purple. Purple and blue fingerlings tend to have a trace of sweetness. Cool varieties abound. They include Russian Banana, the Swedish Peanut, the Purple Peruvian, and many others. At big-box grocery stores, fingerlings are commonly sold as generic fingerlings and not broken into funky sub-types. You can often find mixed bags, single bunches containing many kinds and colors. When shopping, storing, and cooking fingerlings, keep a few things top of mind.
Shopping and Storing Fingerling Potatoes
If you really want to dig into the details of your potatoes and shoot for uncommon kinds, get your fingerlings from a farmers’ market. Though you shouldn’t expect every vegetable grower to carry them, some that stock potatoes may have one or many kinds of fingerlings. Ask the farmer about them—about their inner color, sweetness (if any!), texture once cooked, and how the farmer likes to prepare them. Look for fingerlings that aren’t withered. Also, they shouldn’t have many brown spots or any sprouts or green tinges. When storing fingerlings, the key is to keep them out of the fridge. Like all potatoes but for the most delicate kinds (new potatoes, for instance), fingerlings do best when stashed in a cool, dim pantry. They can hang out there for a few days without any loss in quality.
Boiling
One of the beautiful things about fingerlings is they cook faster than the bigger potatoes, like russets. Simply boiled, they take some 25 minutes to reach the fork-tender level of perfect doneness. From there, you don’t need to add more than salt and butter or olive oil. But of course, you can add more. You can toss your fingerlings, halved if you prefer, in a sauce like pesto or a mustardy vinaigrette.
Roasting
Fingerlings are great roasted simply. Their size lets you develop thin, shattering exteriors while retaining pillowy goodness inside. When roasting, halve fingerlings and set the oven to at least 375° F (and as high as 500° F). Drenching them with olive oil helps you achieve that crisp, dark brown crust. Even the mildly sweet blue and purple fingerlings are something of a blank canvas. When seasoning you can think outside the box to, say, to a textural pistachio crumble or punchy potatoes that nod to salt-and-vinegar chips.
Smashing
For maximum crispy goodness, smash your fingerlings. To do this, boil them for 20 minutes or so, until a fork slides in easily. Pat them dry. And then apply pressure from above with a tool like a spatula. Press down with your palm, gently collapsing the potato. Next, line an oiled baking tray with fingerlings tenderly smashed. Drizzle on ample olive oil and blast them at 450° F for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the outsides deeply brown. Even without accents like garlic or cotija cheese, the resulting potato will be a crunchy keeper.
Other Ideas
Maybe you prefer a creamier smashed potato? Or maybe a preparation like a soup that honors the potato’s South American roots? When thinking about how to prepare fingerlings and you come across a recipe that calls for another kind of potato, you can typically sub in fingerlings so long as you cut them to a size that aims to replicate the size of potatoes in the recipe. (The exception: recipes calling for a much bigger potato, such as a baked potato recipe). At the end of the day, fingerlings have the same versatility as just about any other kind of potato. Use them widely, especially when you can find cool, colorful potatoes from small local vendors. When fresh and local, you don’t have to do much. But there’s a whole lot of possibility within easy reach if you want.
