Roast Potatoes
Roast potatoes are the most important part of any roast dinner, and probably the hardest to get right. Here's the method I've found works best for me.
You'll need
- A pot
- A metal roasting tray
- Cooking oil
- A colander
Ingredients
- Potatoes, about two or three per person.
Method
- An hour and a quarter before you serve: Preheat the oven and pour some cooking oil into your roasting tray. Put the tray with oil into the oven while it preheats. Getting your oil nice and hot in advance makes the difference between nice, crunchy potatoes and mediocre ones.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into chunks about two inches wide.- Bring a saucepan of water to the boil.
Tip the potatoes into the boiling water, being careful not to splash it.- Bring the pan back to the boil and let it simmer.
The potatoes will be done simmering in about ten minutes. Keep a close eye on the timer -- it's vital that you don't overdo them! You can test to see if the potatoes are ready by fishing one out with a spoon and shaking it a bit in the colander. If the potato is soft enough that its flesh starts to scuff up, your potatoes are ready.
Strain your potatoes through the colander, and give them a good shake to scuff them up. This makes their surfaces rougher, so they're able to absorb more cooking oil and become crispier.
Forty-five minutes before you serve, take the roasting tray of hot oil out of the oven (remember to use an oven glove!) and place it on the worktop. Tip the potatoes from the colander into the hot oil and roll them around in it -- be careful not to splash yourself!- Put the potatoes back into the oven, and drop the heat to 190C.
After forty-five minutes, the potatoes should be brown and crispy. Take them out and serve them with the rest of your roast.
Variations
- The best time to add things to the roast potatoes is when you put them into the oil. Try sprinkling salt, pepper, and rosemary on them.
- The type of potato you use for this makes a big difference. I'm usually pretty disdainful of people who insist there's a difference between a cabbage and a free-range artisanal Savoy cabbage, but King Edward potatoes roast much better than a generic white potato.
- If you're planning on making gravy with your roast (and you should be) try saving the liquid the potatoes were boiled in when you strain it away, and adding it to your roasting dish when you make the gravy. The particles of starch from the potatoes will help thicken it up.