These baby potatoes are cooked until wrinkly on the outside with that rich buttery bite in the middle before being cooked down in a chilli garlic butter glaze to beautifully coat the potatoes. The glaze is both sweet and savoury with a kick of heat from the chili and umami from the miso paste. These are inspired by my love for Gamja Jorim, or Korean Braised Potatoes that are usually coated in this sweet and sticky glaze and enjoyed as banchan or as a side dish.
You can enjoy this as-is as a starter or appetiser, a side dish, or enjoyed with rice.
Thoroughly wash your potatoes to wash off any dirt. Dry your potatoes well. If your potatoes are larger than a ping pan ball, I recommend slicing these in half.
Place the potatoes on a baking tray and leave to bake for 30-35 minutes until the skin of the potatoes are slightly wrinkly. You can also air-fry these at 200C for 15-20 minutes.I personally prefer to bake/air-fry these so I can just leave them. But another alternative is to pan-fry these on the pan with 1 tbsp oil and leave these to cook and turn slightly browned on each side and soft to the touch for 20-25 minutes on medium heat.
After baking/cooking the potatoes, heat a medium sized pot or pan over medium. Once hot, add the vegan butter and lower the heat. Once the butter has melted, add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the soy sauce, mirin, chili sauce, miso paste, syrup, and brown sugar. Over medium low heat, allow the sugar to dissolve. The sugars from the sauce will slowly cook down and thicken to a glaze.
Taste the glaze and feel free to adjust to your desired taste.
Place the cooked potatoes in the glaze.
Turn up the heat to medium high until the sauce and sugars start to rapidly bubble and then mix the potatoes to coat in the glaze. Keep a close eye on the potatoes since they can easily burn from the sugars. Taste the potatoes and feel free to add more liquid sweetener if you’d like. Turn off the heat.
The glaze will continue to thicken as the potatoes cool.
Finish with sesame seeds, if desired.
Serve and enjoy warm or cold. I personally prefer these somewhere in between when they're not hot, but also not cold and the glaze is just a perfect thick consistency that sticks to the potatoes well.
Note that the potatoes will stick and clump together due to the glaze as it cools so these are actually best enjoyed at room temperature when they’re not too hot but also not cold and the glaze is sticky but not hard.
I used white miso paste which is milder in taste compared to other more fermented miso pastes like red miso paste, so it's best to start with 1/2 tbsp first and adjust to taste from there.
If you don't have miso paste, you can skip this and season with more soy sauce if needed for more savoury & umami flavours and saltiness.
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