What Are Caramel Potatoes And How Are They Traditionally Eaten?

Denmark is known for many wonderful comestibles, from decadent pastries and butter cookies to salty black licorice and open-faced smørrebrød on rye bread. When the holidays roll around, another standard-bearer of Danish cuisine is caramel potatoes — also known as brunede kartofler or brown potatoes. Indeed, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Danish Christmas dinner spread that didn't feature the sweet, sticky dish. 

While there are many variations, the basic ingredients are small potatoes, sugar, and butter. Such a combination might seem strange to those who have only eaten savory spuds, but when you liken it to the candied carrots and marshmallow-laden casseroles that so many Americans eat on Thanksgiving, caramel potatoes start to make all the sense in the world. Per Danish Christmas tradition, the dish is usually served alongside some sort of roasted meat dish, be it pork, turkey, duck, or goose. 

While caramel potatoes are typically reserved for festive occasions, that doesn't mean they're difficult to make. In fact, they might be the simplest side dish at any given Danish Yuletide celebration.

A trademark of caramel potatoes, in addition to their buttery sweetness, is their creamy yet tender texture. Sharing a recipe with The Splendid Table, Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbaeæk (a Danish food scientist and chef, respectively) note that the key to a perfect plate of caramel potatoes comes down to the boiling process. 

"The potatoes must be boiled until well done but still firm and then peeled carefully rather than scraped so as to preserve the fine membrane that is found just under the peel," they write, explaining that the membrane helps lock in the potato starch during the browning process. They suggest boiling small new potatoes for 15 minutes and letting them rest in the fridge while the caramel gets started.  

The way Mouritsen and Styrbaeæk cook their potatoes is the same as Nadine Levy Redzepi, whose version appears in Food & Wine; sugar is added to a saucepan over medium-high heat and is gently swirled rather than stirred until it's caramelized, which takes about four minutes. Next comes the butter, which should get frothy in the pan over low heat before getting stirred in with the sticky sugar. Finally, the peeled, cooked potatoes are added to the pan and stirred gently in the sugar-butter mixture until dark brown in color, which could take 10 to 20 minutes. Thanks to the deeply browned sugar, the spuds should taste slightly bitter on the surface. 

Back in medieval Denmark, it was common to serve caramel-coated chestnuts alongside Christmas goose. But sometime in the early to mid-1800s, when chestnuts were scarce, not all Danes could afford to roast chestnuts on an open fire around the holidays. Instead, they turned to potatoes, which were much more affordable and abundant, in their place. Perhaps that's why traditional caramel potatoes call for the smallest spuds you can find — when browned in sugar and butter, they bear a striking resemblance to chestnuts.  

Over the years, it seems caramel potatoes have eclipsed their chestnut predecessors in most Danish households. Today, you'll often find them served with slow-roasted pork or waterfowl, plus additional sides like boiled red cabbage, warm rice pudding, pickles, and plenty of brown gravy to pour over everything. Cap it all off with a punch bowl filled with gløgg, a hot mulled wine, and you have yourself a proper Danish feast that Hans Christian Andersen would approve of.