Kimchichurri Hasselback Potatoes

Happy St Patrick's Day! I guess it was yesterday, but I wasn't able to post this until today. I'm on another 24 hour shift in the hospital, but was so thankful that my St Paddy's weekend wasn't crazily filled with belligerent drinkers hurting themselves! So in true Irish fashion, I made some potatoes and topped it with something green.

I love a buttered potato and it's actually very common to eat potatoes or sweet potatoes with kimchi in Korea. We say that potatoes and kimchi are friends, like PB & J are! I decided to adapt the classic Argentine chimichurri sauce with kimchi instead and used cilantro because I thought it might go together better than parsley. And so you have kimchi + chimichurri = KIMCHICHURRI!!

I've now got a jar of this delicious tangy fresh kimchichurri in the fridge and will top everything with it this week 😋

Kimchichurri Hasselback Potatoes

6 small yukon potatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 pat butter
sea salt, black pepper
roasted sesame seeds

Kimchichurri
2 stalks green onion
1 bunch cilantro (or 1 cup firmly packed leaves, thick stems trimmed)
1/3 cup napa cabbage kimchi
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp kimchi juice
1/2 tbsp gochugaru (Korean red pepper powder)
1 tbsp light sesame oil
1/3 cup olive oil
salt

1. Prepare potatoes. Wash, remove eyes and soak in cold water for 10 mins. Preheat oven to 425F
2. Put potato on chopping board, flat side down. Cut in 5 mm intervals almost all the way through
3. Arrange potatoes in a baking tray. Rub butter on top of each potato, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt and fresh black pepper. Bake for about 40 mins or until the tops are crispy and the flesh is soft
4. While potatoes are baking, get out your food processor. Add green onion, cilantro leaves and kimchi. Pulse to achieve coarse/finely chopped texture. Otherwise, I did this all buy hand (because my food processor was already in use with other things :P). Plus, I like a more chopped chunky texture for chimichurri
5. Stir in the minced garlic, kimchi juice, gochugaru, sesame and olive oil. Salt to taste
6. Top kimchichurri over baked hasselback potatoes and serve. Chimichurri can be kept for a week in a tightly closed jar. It tastes even better as it ages!