I am so happy to find those cute little new potatoes in the supermarket. I’ve always loved potatoes. When I was young, coming home from school, I would simply eat the boiled ones without anything added, if my mom happened to prepare that for later dish. She usually mashes it with a little oil and green onion, and I would happily eat it all as a main dish, even though on Chinese dining table, it’s regarded as a dish to accompany your rice. Here in Sweden potato is definitely one of the staple food, so I eat more potatoes since I came here. My favorite way is to bake them with seasoning, it's very easy and also not very time-consuming.

I also bought a Japanese seasoning lately, so I am eager to try it out. This seasoning is called Shichimi tōgarashi, 七味唐辛子, and it is made of coarsely ground red chili pepper, ground Sichuan pepper, roasted orange peel, black sesame seed, white sesame seed, hemp seed, ground ginger and nori. So basically if you can’t find it, you can easily find the ingredients to make your own mix, just remember to keep chili pepper as the main ingredient, and add a little bit of everything else to enrich the flavor. By the way, this is the only seasoning using hemp seeds that I know so far. ^^

Kitchen Gadgets: Oven and Pot

Ingredients

• 20 small new potatoes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp Shichimi tōgarashi
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200°C ( 392°F).
2. Scrub the potatoes clean, don’t peel them.
3. Bring enough water to boil, then add the potatoes and boil for 10 mintes.
4. Scoop out the potatoes with a slotted ladel, remove the water. Add the potatoes back to the pot, add oil, shichimi seasoning and salt, put on the lid and hold the handles firmly, then shake like crazy to let the flavor evenly coat the potatoes.
5. Line the baking tray with foil and roast the potato at the highest level in the oven for 20 minutes. Enjoy!