Spicy Armadillo Potatoes

From Throwdowns on the Brethren to cooks I've posted on here, every time the Armadillo is on a plate, someone is asking about it. It's a little time consuming, but over all, it's a fairly simple thing to make ... and it's awesome. 

The goodie ingredients are pretty simple, but you can always spice it up or tone it down to preference. 

4 tbs Butter

2 ts Frank's Red Hot (or other hot sauce)

1 tbs Chili Powder

1 1/2 ts Paprika

1 ts Garlic Powder

1/2 cup Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese

(not pictured) Bread Crumbs

A little back story on the Frank's Red Hot mini bottle. While we were at Memphis In May, Frank's had reps walking around giving away the mini bottles. I had on cargo pants and Dawn had her purse, so we may or may not have taken more than 1 sample ... ok, so we went by the truck and got more samples ... ok, OK, so we went day 2 and got more samples. Yes, we have nearly 20 something bottles of Frank's Red Hot ... whoops. 

To prep the potatoes you first slice the bottom off so you have a flat even surface. 

You don't have to use anything, but I like to use wooden spoons as my guide for my cuts (I'm a little anal when it comes to things like that). 

There's not set distance to make your cuts, but I normally do around 1/8 of an inch. The trick here is to cut as straight down as possible. If you mess up and don't make a cut the perfect width, that's fine, that's something you can over correct the next cut. When you cut down though, you need that cut to be as close to straight down as possible, so you don't end up cutting chunks out of the potato (I speak from experience here). 

Throw the potatoes, flat side down, in the microwave for 10 minutes on high. Once they're out and cooled. Fan out the slices to open them up. Pour some EVOO on top and then season with salt and pepper and put in a preheated over for 30 minutes at 450.

While the potatoes are cooking you can mix the topping. There's no magic way of doing this ... just throw it all in a bowl and mix. 

Once the potatoes are done, add the goodie inside the slices and on top of the potatoes. While you're doing this, flip your oven over to medium broil. 

After you've filled in the slices, and poured the rest on top. Throw the potatoes in the oven, now on broil, for  3-5 minutes so the goodies can cook onto the potatoes. 

Once they're out let them rest for a little while ... because it'll be the temperature of the Sun.

Of course we didn't eat the Armadillo's by themselves. We picked up some NY Strips and did our usual seasoning, but this time added some smoked salt and pepper on top. 

One of our favorite dishes ... NY Strips with Armadillo's. These were actually the best potatoes we've made.  We normally try to throw some extra spices and just play with the recipe a bit, but we went straight down the list and they came out amazing (probably could have had a slight hint more of spice). 

The strips with the smoked salt and pepper may be a new thing as well. I don't think Dawn could really taste the flavor, but I could tell it gave the steak a light smokey flavor and helped enhance the existing flavors. 

If you plan to give the armadillo a try post below and let me know, then let me know how it turned out.