Japanese Rosemary Yams + Green Salad with Roasted Hatch Green Chile Salsa

Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa

  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
    Kevin Cannon in his Taos New Mexico adobe studio.
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
    Exterior of Kevin'c adobe home, adjacent to the Mabel Luhan Dodge House
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
    Mabel Luhan Dodge House, a historic B&B in Taos, New Mexico
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
    A few items arranged on a table in Kevin's kitchen.
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa
    Kevin Cannon in his Taos New Mexico adobe studio.
  • Kevin Cannon’s Roasted Japanese Yams And Roasted Green Chile Salsa

NOTES

Japanese yams have a rusted red colored skin, and a densely textured cream colored flesh, not quite as sweet as an orange yam. We paired them with a simple green salad with fresh market lettuces. We also made a rustic salsa from the famed New Mexican roasted green hatch chiles, not necessarily to eat with the yams, but great with chips our on rice and beans. When hatch chiles are in-season, they are everywhere in New Mexico, blistered in a large drum and sold in plastic baggies. They can be frozen and thawed as you need them, since their availability window is so slim. You can find them jarred from specialty purveyors like Zia Green Chile. Theirs will be more puréed than roughly chopped, but still delicious. Our recipe below is an approximation made with charred poblanos and bell peppers, but use Anaheim peppers if you can find them.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400°F and place a large cast iron pan inside to heat up.

3. Scrub the potatoes until nice and clean, and slice lengthwise into 3/4-inch-thick wedges. Toss with olive oil, season with one teaspoon of salt, black pepper to taste and fresh chopped rosemary.

4. Remove the pan from the oven (it should be hot, so use an oven mitt), and add the butter to melt.

5. Add potatoes, tossing to coat, and sprinkle with rosemary and salt and pepper to taste. Roast potatoes in middle of oven for 30 minutes, then increase the heat to a broil for an additional 15 minutes. Gently toss the potatoes with a metal spatula to ensure they brown on all sides.

6. While the potatoes are roasting, make the salsa. Add the onion to a medium bowl and sprinkle with salt and sugar. Add lime juice and set aside to pickle.

7. Over an open flame, char the peppers completely, rotating them with a pair of tongs until they are black and ashy on the outside (about 20 minutes). Run the peppers under cold water and flake off as much of the skin as possible. De-seed and roughly chop (be sure to remove all jalapeno seeds). Add to the pickled onions with the smashed clove of garlic.

8. Dice the tomato and toss them along with their juice in with the pickled onions and peppers. Remove the garlic clove, drizzle with olive oil and mix to combine, seasoning with extra salt if needed. Serve alongside potatoes while still warm, and a simple green salad.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

EASY

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SERVES

2

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PREP TIME

60 MINS

Roasted Yams

  • 1 
    lb 
    Japanese yams (about 1 medium)
  • 1 
    tbs  
    extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 
    sprigs 
    fresh rosemary, leaves chopped
  • 1/2 
    tsp 
    sea salt
  •  
     
    black pepper to taste
  • 2 
    tsp 
    unsalted butter

Hatch Chile Salsa

  • 1/2 
    cup 
    finely diced red onion
  • 1/2 
    tsp 
    white sugar
  • 1/2 
    tsp 
    kosher salt
  • 2 
    tbs 
    fresh lime juice
  • 1 
    clove 
    garlic, smashed
  • 1 
    medium 
    tomato
  • 1 
    small 
    jalapeno pepper
  • 2 
     
    poblano pepper
  • 1 
     
    yellow bell pepper
  •  
     
    salt to taste
  • 2 
    tbs 
    extra virgin olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400°F and place a large cast iron pan inside to heat up.

3. Scrub the potatoes until nice and clean, and slice lengthwise into 3/4-inch-thick wedges. Toss with olive oil, season with one teaspoon of salt, black pepper to taste and fresh chopped rosemary.

4. Remove the pan from the oven (it should be hot, so use an oven mitt), and add the butter to melt.

5. Add potatoes, tossing to coat, and sprinkle with rosemary and salt and pepper to taste. Roast potatoes in middle of oven for 30 minutes, then increase the heat to a broil for an additional 15 minutes. Gently toss the potatoes with a metal spatula to ensure they brown on all sides.

6. While the potatoes are roasting, make the salsa. Add the onion to a medium bowl and sprinkle with salt and sugar. Add lime juice and set aside to pickle.

7. Over an open flame, char the peppers completely, rotating them with a pair of tongs until they are black and ashy on the outside (about 20 minutes). Run the peppers under cold water and flake off as much of the skin as possible. De-seed and roughly chop (be sure to remove all jalapeno seeds). Add to the pickled onions with the smashed clove of garlic.

8. Dice the tomato and toss them along with their juice in with the pickled onions and peppers. Remove the garlic clove, drizzle with olive oil and mix to combine, seasoning with extra salt if needed. Serve alongside potatoes while still warm, and a simple green salad.

Taos, New Mexico can best be understood through its artists and their treasured adobe homes. Now a local B&B, the Mabel Dodge Luhan House and its adjacent property, owned by sculptor Kevin Cannon, tell the story of a continued legacy of why and how artists have found their way to this storied terrain.

Mabel Dodge was an heiress and an New York City art world Grand Dame, a pivotal member of the avant-garde that bubbled forth from Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 gallery. In 1918, Mabel Dodge moved with her husband, architect Edwin Dodge, to Taos, where she visited the pueblo (home to the oldest continuously inhabited building in the U.S.) and fell in love with a Native American man named Tony. Unhindered by the threat of scandal, Dodge initiated her second divorce and married the man with whom she would purchase an imposing cobb house with views of the nearby sacred mountain.

But Mabel was not one to settle into isolation in such a rugged landscape. Instead, she would bring New York to her and create a little bohemia on her very own property. She built an annex next door that would serve as her own private artist residency. New Mexico’s most haloed artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, lived in this outpost for years, and D.H. Lawrence painted a still life that remains on the closet door. This property would become a destination for some of the best writers, photographers and painters of their time.

But the legacy did not stop with Mabel. In the early 70’s Dennis Hopper bought the home and christened the building “The Mud Palace.” Only the lunatic Hopper could out do Mrs. Luhan, hosting art-world ragers that made him infamous in an otherwise contemplative town. While the main structure at The Mabel Dodge Luhan House is now run as a sleepy guesthouse and a shrine to its own provenance, artist Kevin Cannon keeps the bohemian legacy aflame in the two buildings that once housed Mabel’s artist residency. Kevin invited me over for a tour of his nest, at once a crumbling and a meticulously universe. It is as if this pale pink gem of an abode is an extension of Kevin himself; it’s impossible to imagine him living anywhere else really. Kevin tells me, “this house is the best thing that ever happened to me,” and while the mud walls are in a constant state of turning to dust, Kevin keeps his home and own personal gallery space in meticulous order, pants color-coded, his sculptures draped in protective cloaks.

We ate our simple meal of Japanese yams, and looked through Kevin’s deep archives of pencil drawings and twisted, tangled leather sculpture, some of them made from 6 or 7 pieces of leather laminated together and carved. Kevin’s leather sculpting technique stems from his early fascination with cobblering and saddle-making. He even owned and operated a Roman-style sandal boutique in New York’s West Village in the late 1960s, making custom sandals to-order. He showed us the very first riding saddle he ever made, and it was impossible to fathom how anyone could achieve such perfection with their own two hands. The leather was taught like a drum, but smooth and buttery — precious yet ready for wear. We sat and ate by the dim light of the fire, only then realizing that the sun had set on what had been a marathon salad session. As the day came to a close, my eye was drawn to a little sketch of a Japanese yam and single marrow bone. When I admired the work of art, Kevin insisted I take it with me. The piece is now in my Brooklyn kitchen, a reminder that for so many of us, our homes, and specifically our kitchens, are the kernal of our creative universe.