A well cooked roast potato is a culinary delight - badly cooked roast potatoes are a disaster!
The choice of potato is as important as the cooking method when roasting potatoes and it is important to understand that. Potatoes fall into two general categories, those with a waxy texture when cooked and those with a floury texture. While it is not for me to dictate your choices, it is generally recognized that those with a floury texture are best for roast potatoes while the waxy type are delicious as straight boiled potatoes or for use in a potato salad.
How To Cook
Select The Potatoes
Try to chose potatoes of roughly the same size. If this is not possible, at least be able to cut them into pieces of a similar size once they are peeled. Each potato should be about an inch and a half in general size. Anything smaller than that can cook too quickly and become dried out. Anything larger might take too long to roast and cook.
Par Boil The Potatoes
Having peeled the potatoes and cut them to the required size, wash them in cold water to remove the excess starch and then place them in a saucepan of cold water, add salt, and bring them quickly to the boil. Allow them to boil for about five minutes or to the point when you gently score the surface of a potato with a knife it is starting to crumble. Remove the potatoes from the heat and drain out the water, but leave the potatoes in the saucepan. Now having the potatoes in the saucepan with no water, place the lid on the saucepan, and holding the lid in place with one hand, pick up the saucepan and shake the pan deliberately and vigorously for about ten seconds. When you remove the lid, the potatoes should now all have surfaces which have been roughed up, and this will create the delicious crispy exterior when roasted.
Preparing the Roasting Pan
While the potatoes are being par-boiled, place a roasting tray into a hot oven (200 degrees C / 400 degrees F), with a little dripping or oil. This will ensure that when the potatoes are ready to be added to it everything will be piping hot. The roasting pan must be big enough to allow individual potatoes to sit in it without touching one another. This is very important. If you have a lot of potatoes to roast, then consider using more than one pan if necessary.
Roasting The Potatoes
Take the roasting pan out of the oven and pour the shaken potatoes from the saucepan into the roasting pan. They should sizzle nicely as they make contact with the hot fat. The pan should only have a film covering of fat, it should not be swimming in it. Spread the potatoes out so that there is space between them and with a couple of spoons turn each one over and over so that it takes up a thin lair of the oil or fat (goose fat makes delicious roast potatoes, but olive oil is good as well).
Place the potatoes back into the oven at the same temperature and cook for about 20 minutes. Remove them and turn them over with a spoon and repeat this every 20 minutes or so. The potato should take about an hour to cook and when they are done they will be crispy on the outside and floury in the middle and utterly delicious! If you feel they are cooking too fast reduce the oven temperature a little. There will always be slight variations as individual ovens vary as do potato crops.
Warnings!
Unless you like soggy roast potatoes, and I fully accept that some people may, never place roasted potatoes into a warming oven to wait for everything else to complete. In that environment they will absorb moisture and all your good work will be undone. Instead, make sure that the roast potatoes are the very last thing to come out of the oven and take them to the table in all their glory.
How to Cook Roast Potatoes
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