Crispy, golden roast potatoes - now all they need is some nice gravy to go with them !Now, I know that everyone has their own special way of making the ‘perfect’ roast potato. There are – literally - hundreds of different methods out there … and believe you me, I’ve tried most of them (!!) and this is the one fail proof method I’ve come up with, which just turns out the best roast potatoes time after time, after time …. I happened upon this ‘method’ after years of trial and error … (and my husband is so glad I did !)
First, you have to start with a good quality potato that is best suited to roasting. This depends on where you live. If you live in Tanzania and go to the market and ask for, let’s say, a Maris Piper, they will look at you funny and ask if you are feeling okay …. or who the dickens Maris Piper is ! Here, we only have 2 choices … “red” or “white” … ha ha … and even so, the white potatoes are not that easy to come by.
So what you need to do to make your roast potatoes perfect, is this -:
Take how ever many potatoes you plan to roast, and peel them and chop them in half. Par boil them in salted water until they are just soft around the outsides and tender on the insides when pricked with a fork.
Now place them in a colander and shake them around so that the outsides become all rough and ruffled up (this helps them to crisp really nicely). Now throw them into a glass baking dish and pour a tiny bit of oil over each one. At the end of it you only want about ½ cm of oil in the base of the dish. Sprinkle salt over each potato and toss them through the shallow layer of oil, then place them in an oven that has been pre heated to Gas mark 8/230'C/450'F.
You only need turn them once or twice during cooking, and they should take about 30 to 40 minutes to go a lovely golden colour and cook through.
As a side note, I do not like the taste of potato, or anything deep fried/doused in oil - so roast potatoes are a bad ‘combination’ for me ! (I’m a pasta girl, through and through !) But my husband, family and friends all agree that these roast potatoes taste great. So, I’ll take their word for it – and go back to guzzling my bowl of pasta, thank you very much !
First, you have to start with a good quality potato that is best suited to roasting. This depends on where you live. If you live in Tanzania and go to the market and ask for, let’s say, a Maris Piper, they will look at you funny and ask if you are feeling okay …. or who the dickens Maris Piper is ! Here, we only have 2 choices … “red” or “white” … ha ha … and even so, the white potatoes are not that easy to come by.
So what you need to do to make your roast potatoes perfect, is this -:
Take how ever many potatoes you plan to roast, and peel them and chop them in half. Par boil them in salted water until they are just soft around the outsides and tender on the insides when pricked with a fork.
Now place them in a colander and shake them around so that the outsides become all rough and ruffled up (this helps them to crisp really nicely). Now throw them into a glass baking dish and pour a tiny bit of oil over each one. At the end of it you only want about ½ cm of oil in the base of the dish. Sprinkle salt over each potato and toss them through the shallow layer of oil, then place them in an oven that has been pre heated to Gas mark 8/230'C/450'F.
You only need turn them once or twice during cooking, and they should take about 30 to 40 minutes to go a lovely golden colour and cook through.
As a side note, I do not like the taste of potato, or anything deep fried/doused in oil - so roast potatoes are a bad ‘combination’ for me ! (I’m a pasta girl, through and through !) But my husband, family and friends all agree that these roast potatoes taste great. So, I’ll take their word for it – and go back to guzzling my bowl of pasta, thank you very much !
