If you were to ask my grandson what makes a ‘dinner taste really good’ I’ve no doubt whatsoever his answer would be roast potatoes. I always have to make them when I’m cooking his dinner as he doesn’t particularly like mash potato. He’d eat a panful of roasties if I let him..
I’ve found through a lot of trial and error over the years the secret to making a really decent roast potato is to use goose-fat. You can buy it from your local supermarket. Aldi and Tesco do a good one. However goose fat (I think anyway) has gone up a fair amount over the last few years, plus vegetarians obviously won’t want to use goose fat. I’ve found vegetable oil also works really well.
These were made using vegetable oil and went down a treat.
Here’s my recipe for making delicious crispy roast potatoes that have a delicious soft centre..
Ingredients
- However many potatoes you’ll all manage to eat. A lot of folks swear by Maris Piper’s, but to be honest I don’t think it matters. I just use whatever I have in.
- Goose-fat/vegetable oil
- Water to boil your potatoes in.
- Mixed herbs or I used some home dried sage on these.
Method
- Peel your potatoes, cut into a preferred size, cover with water and bring to the boil on your hob. Let them simmer for about 10 minutes until they are parboiled or just starting to soften.
- Meanwhile, turn your oven on to a high heat, add a good knob of goose-fat/oil to an oven dish and put in oven so the fat becomes smoky hot.
- Drain off the water from the potatoes and transfer back to the hob so potatoes can dry out. Mines an electric hob, so I usually turn off the heat and put the pan back on the ring so they dry well.
- Once the potatoes have dried, distress them. All this entails is just shaking them about in the pan so they get a bit battered.
- Remove the smoking hot goose-fat pan from the oven and add the potatoes carefully. make sure they are well covered with the goose-fat before returning to a very hot oven to finish cooking.
- Sprinkle with a shake of sage
- Once they start to crisp up after about 10-15 minutes, you can turn the heat down and finish cooking in a medium oven, it should take about half an hour.
- Drain on kitchen towel to absorb any excess fat.
They aren’t suitable if you’re dieting, but they do taste really good
NB A lot of folks add salt to the boiling potatoes, but I don’t as most of my family add salt to their meal. If you want to add salt to yours then be my guest…
