Roasted Tater Rounds with Green Onions — The Ones from Bellaire

Houston had a cold snap this week. Not what anyone outside the Gulf Coast would call cold — the low was thirty-eight degrees on Thursday — but the city handled it the way it always does, with mild chaos and an emergency run on space heaters at every Home Depot in a twenty-mile radius. I wear a lined flannel shirt and consider myself prepared. I was born in a refugee camp in Arkansas. Thirty-eight degrees is not an emergency in my book.

Had four sales calls lined up Monday through Wednesday. Two were existing clients needing equipment upgrades, one was a new Vietnamese-American restaurant opening in the Midtown area that wanted my full commercial kitchen setup consultation, and one was a follow-up on a proposal I'd put in last month. I landed three of the four, which is a good week. My numbers are definitely recovering. The new Vietnamese restaurant was a particular pleasure — the owner, a woman in her late forties named Lan, had moved from San Jose with her family specifically to open this place. She'd been saving for twelve years. I spent an extra hour with her talking about her menu and walked out feeling like I'd done something useful with my morning.

AA meeting Tuesday as always. My friend and sponsor Bill has been battling a knee issue and showed up limping but showed up. That's the whole thing with AA, really. You show up even when you don't want to. Especially when you don't want to. I've been doing this long enough that the Tuesday meeting is like breathing — I don't think about whether to go, I just go. We had a new guy this week, mid-thirties, eyes like he hasn't slept in a week. I remembered being that person. I talked to him after.

Mai called me Thursday to tell me she needed green onions and I should bring some when I come Saturday. She specifically said not to bring the ones from the grocery store, she wanted the ones from the Vietnamese market on Bellaire. I said yes. I drove thirty-five minutes out of my way to get the right green onions. They're not even different green onions. But I got them.

Made a big pot of chicken congee Saturday evening — not for any particular reason except that it was cold and congee is what you make when it's cold. Rice, ginger, poached chicken, soy, sesame oil, and those specific green onions. Ate two bowls and fell asleep on the couch by 8:30. It was a perfect evening.

Those green onions from Bellaire were never just for the congee — I sliced the extras thin and scattered them over tater rounds I’d thrown in the oven while the rice was cooking, and they finished the whole plate in a way that grocery-store green onions simply wouldn’t have. Mai would understand. The thirty-five-minute detour was, in the end, exactly justified. If you’re going to make something simple on a cold night, you might as well make it right.

Roasted Tater Rounds with Green Onions & Tarragon

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs small Yukon Gold or red potatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced (use the good ones if you can find them)
• 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, roughly chopped (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt, for finishing

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly oil it.
2. Season the rounds. In a large bowl, toss the potato rounds with olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, and garlic powder until every slice is evenly coated.
3. Arrange and roast. Spread the rounds in a single layer on the baking sheet — no overlapping. Roast for 15 minutes, then flip each round and roast another 13–15 minutes until the edges are golden and the centers are tender.
4. Finish with green onions and tarragon. Pull the pan from the oven. Scatter the sliced green onions and tarragon over the hot rounds immediately so they just barely wilt from the residual heat. Finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt.
5. Serve. Transfer to a plate and serve hot. These hold well for a few minutes if something else on the stove needs your attention.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 175 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 390mg