You know what dish scared me the first time I tried to make it? Hasselback potatoes. Those perfectly fanned slices, golden and crisp on the outside, soft as a pillow in the middle. I burned the first three attempts. My grandmother would have laughed, then told me to stop crying over a potato.

She wasn't wrong. A recipe making the rounds right now catches exactly what makes this style of potato so good. Those thin layers that crisp up in the oven while the inside turns buttery and soft. It is one of those dishes that looks like it belongs on a restaurant menu but costs next to nothing.

The technique is said to originate from the Hasselbacken restaurant in Stockholm, though the exact history is debated. You take a potato, preferably a firm waxy variety like a Yukon Gold, and you slice it almost all the way through in thin intervals. The key word is almost. If you cut all the way through, you just have sliced potatoes in a pan, which is fine, but not this. You want the slices to stay connected at the bottom so they fan out as they cook.

The chopstick trick for getting the cuts right is widely known among cooks, and for good reason. You place a chopstick on each side of the potato before you cut, and the knife hits the chopsticks and stops. No over-cutting. You look silly doing it, but it works every time.

Then comes the butter. Melted, brushed between every layer. Garlic, salt, maybe some thyme if you have it growing on the windowsill. The butter finds its way into each cut as the potato bakes, and the edges crisp while the centers steam in their own moisture. About 35 to 40 minutes in a hot oven, and you have something that fills the kitchen with a smell that makes everyone suddenly appear, asking when dinner is ready.

Good food does not need to be expensive or complicated. It needs patience and a little bit of care. A potato, some butter, salt. That's the whole story.