I just bought two pounds of Peruvian purple potatoes at the farmers' market today. The specific variety is purple majesty. I have never used purple potatoes before. I looked on the internet and didn't find any real good recipes other than mashing them. Does anyone have a great recipe highlighting these potatoes?
Lance

Take a look on Epicurious -

We tried a really easy recipe where you take smallish potatoes of several kinds, quarter or halve them, toss them in a bowl with some olive oil & herbs, them bake/roast them on a shallow (jelly-roll) pan.

Looked impressive for entertaining - I think we had a mix of the purple ones, red russets, and baby yukon golds.

If they're the ones that I am thinking of (about the size of x-large eggs), then you should be able to do anything with them that you would do with other "salad" potatoes.

Ron,
Thanks for the tip. I found a recipe on the food network. We roasted them in olive oil and some other spices. They were great. I had these huge expectations and was slightly disappointed. The purple potatoes tasted just like any other potato. I guess I expected something more. The purple color was pretty cool. I am definitely going to try these again.
Lance

They taste the same, the blue corn vs. regular corn, or purple broccoli vs. green. That said, they make a nice presentation.

Kevin,
It is a nice presentation. Surprisingly my kids didn't really like that they were a different color. I think the purple was a little to weird. The day after the kids talked about wanting to try the purple potatoes. Thanks for the info about the blue corn. I had wondered since Bobby Flay always seems to be using it.
Lance

for something a little different, try the same recipe/technique but with a mixture of other roots like parsnips, turnips, beets, etc.

You will be surprised at the reaction. We do this quite often (roasted root veggies) and everybody always ends up debating the relative merits of each and going on about how they never new parsnips could be so good.

J,
I will have to give some root vegetables a try. I am trying to expand my culinary horizon and eat things that are not mainstream. I don't think I have ever had parsnip so I will have to give that a try, at least. Do parsnips respond well to roasting?
Lance

Very well. Let them caramelize. If large (or at the larger ends) cut, then check if the core is woody. If so, cut it away.

you'll be surprised by their sweetness.

I'm not sure now is the best time for them. The ones I found in the produce dept were pretty skinny and barely worth dicing. I'm hoping they get a bit bigger as fall progresses.

The younger skinnies are the ones I like. Larger/older can tend towards woodiness in the core, depending on variety. Very limited selection at home but I find good ones on the road.

The purples are pretty waxy. Add a couple yukons with them for cool looking/great tasting mashed taters.