Soft, tender potato medallions.

When I was a young lad, there was a buffet restaurant throughout the southeastern States called Quincy's, famous for their yeast rolls. We ate there a lot, and I became quite enamored of many of their foods, a few of which I have not found in the same style anywhere else. The most obvious is the yeast rolls, but I'm on my way to reproducing those. The one I've had the least luck with seems the simplest: The breakfast potatoes.

These potatoes were medallions cut from small, unpeeled potatoes, generally about an inch in diameter. They were usually around a quarter of an inch thick. They had a soft, papery exterior that was neither crisp, chewy nor soggy, and an interior that was light and fluffy like perfect baked potatoes. I've tried just about every which way to produce these, and I'm about at my wit's end.

I just had my best result yet, by slicing them about half an inch thick, and baking them at 375 for 35 minutes. When they're thinner, they don't get the proper fluffiness, yet the ones from Quincy's were definitely thinner. Anyway, these had a chewy, rather thick exterior that I didn't like. Would a lower heat help, perhaps? Par-boiling?

The closest I've been able to find in a prepared recipe is for steak fries, but all the discussion on fries is how to get a crispy exterior. Which makes me also wonder, does anyone else out there prefer their fries with a soft, barely noticeable skin?