Potatoes with Sage tempura

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

My mom whipped up this recipe one day after gardening for a few hours. I could tell she wanted something hearty and flavorful after slaving away under the hot sun. It was summer and her herbs were growing happily after nearly a 7-month winter. My parents live in Hokkaido, also known as "Snow Country," so when the ice melts and the ground breaks with life, it almost feels like an event.

She walked into the kitchen with a handful of fresh sage leaves and a grin. I asked her what it was because I had never seen or used fresh sage before. The only sage I knew was an old room mate's boyfriend who we called Sagie behind his back.

She told me that she was going to make tempura sage and potatoes. I was curious. I watched her with a keen intensity as she made a tempura batter while keeping one eye on her boiling pot of special Hokkaido potatoes and juggling a few other side dishes. With almost no effort at all, she perfectly executed the timing of her tempura with the timing of the potatoes. I often think my mother could have been the Martha Stewart of Japan.

I was skeptical about using tempura batter with such an unconventional ingredient as sage and the idea of putting it together with potatoes that strongly resembled steak fries left me bemused.

After a bite of each ingredient I was hooked. I begged my mom to make it again the next day but we were out of her special potatoes.

Recently, I was at a friend's house. She has the warmest and most inviting garden I've been to. Currently she has 18 tomato plants, cucumbers, eggplants, shiso, herbs, two varieties of carrots, wala wala onions, two strong loquat trees that look like the guardian gate keepers of the garden, a variety of other fruit trees and much much more.

The sage caught my attention because I knew that if I ever got my hands on fresh sage again, I would try to come up with my mother's potato sage dish.

Ingredients
2 medium russet potatoes or 1/2 lbs of Yukon gold potatoes or those teeny tiny yellow potatoes.(The teeny tiny ones are my favorite)
2 Tablespoons of canola oil to fry the potatoes.
8-10 Sage leaves
Tempura batter
1-2 cup of canola oil for the tempura
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt or kosher salt to taste
A pinch of kombu powder or kombu cha (optional)

Directions
1) Boil potatoes with the skin on. They are done when you can poke a skewer or knife easily through it.(approx. 20-25 minutes) Be careful not to over cook them where the skin is falling off and the potatoes are getting soggy. The teeny tiny ones take about 7-9 minutes.
2) Make either vegan (Bottom of the page) or egg tempura batter and heat a small sauce pan with canola oil.
3) Coat the entire sage leaf or just half with tempura batter and drop them into the oil.
4) Place them on a wire wrack to cool and sprinkle with kosher/sea salt or a mixture of salt and kombu cha while hot.
5) When the potatoes are done cut them into wedges.
6) Get a frying pan nice and hot. Add the canola oil and coat the pan.
7) Lay the potatoes down and try not to move them until it's golden brown, then do all sides. (About 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side.) For the teeny tine potatoes, about 1-2 minutes and roll them around.
8) Place the potatoes on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil and add generous amounts of salt and black pepper while hot. (This isn't necessary with the teeny tiny potatoes.
9) Plate the potatoes and tempura sage together.

Start the potatoes in cold water.