Alice Waters' Salt-Roasted Potatoes with Crème Fraîche and Chives

This week's guest editor is Alice Waters, the visionary behind Chez Panisse and The Edible Schoolyard Project. All week, she'll be sharing recipes from her latest cookbook, The Art of Simple Food II, answering our questions, and inspiring us to get a little dirt on our sleeves. We'll also be giving away a copy of her new book each day!

Today: Alice Waters introduces us to a new potato variety, and a new way to roast potatoes.

It is easy now to find many varieties of potatoes at the market or the nursery -- yellow-, pink-, and purple-fleshed; waxy and floury; baby, fingerling, and new. Cranberry Red are super-sweet and magenta inside, and I love roasting them in salt. Choose small potatoes for this recipe; they will cook faster and make a very pretty hor d'oeuvre or side dish. The bright red flash of the Cranberry Red potatoes is striking when accented with the green chives and white cream.

Salt-Roasted Cranberry Red Potatoes with Crème Fraîche and Chives

16 to 20 small Cranberry Red potatoes
4 cups rock salt
Crème fraîche
Chopped chives
Freshly ground black pepper

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

Photo by James Ransom

We're giving away a copy of The Art of Simple Food II! To enter, tell us in the comments: What's your favorite type of potato to cook? We'll choose a winner this Friday, November 22 -- unfortunately, we can't ship outside the US.