By Michael Kim
I make potato puffs when I need to feel that everyone loves me. Feeling unloved is one of the principal occupational hazards of being a poet, I have found. It is hard to write poems. So often they are full of pain and the truth that causes pain. A good kind of pain, but pain nonetheless. Writing is like going away someplace far and remote, full of loneliness. Stones and air. The threat of storm and darkness. When I come back to myself, in a warm chair and with my chin in hand, I even feel sometimes that I have become stone. Putting a few potatoes in a pressure cooker dispels that feeling pretty effectively. A soft love helps.
Recipe:
Wash five medium-sized potatoes and put them in a pressure cooker. I use an Instant Pot on high pressure for 18 minutes.
In the meantime, set a package of puff pastry on the counter to thaw. Prepare these ingredients:
½ medium red onion, diced
1 or 2 green chilies, trimmed, seeded and minced
¼ cup chopped cilantro
Juice of ½ a lime
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 ½ teaspoons salt, or to taste
When the potatoes are cooked (tender all the way through), let them cool enough so that you don’t burn your fingertips peeling the jackets off of them. Mash to a slightly lumpy consistency. Add the assembled ingredients and mix.
Once the puff pastry is thawed enough to be manipulated, unfold a sheet on a cutting board and cut it into nine squares. Put a tablespoon or so of filling in the center of each. I keep a small bowl of water next to my work in which to dip my fingers: rinse the potatoey-ness off and moisten the edges of the pastry before pressing them together to seal. I fold the squares into triangular puffs.
Bake in a 400ºF oven and keep an eye on them so they don't burn. Serve and watch everyone go blind with love.
This recipe is from my mom’s work-in-progress cookbook.