Cooking Time 1 hour - Serves 4
Regardless of who you are, where you are from or what you believe in or not, I guarantee we can all agree on one thing! And that is that a Sunday roast would not be the same without a good old roast potato.
When it comes to the perfect roast potato we are talking about a golden crispy outer layer with a beautiful fluffy middle. To achieve this it all starts with selecting the right potato for the job and in my opinion that has to be the Maris Piper or Rooster potatoes.
Ingredients
1 kg Maris Piper or Rooster potatoes.
Duck or goose fat, beef dripping or oil.
1 handful of fresh rosemary, sage, thyme.
6 garlic cloves.
1 chicken stock pot or stock cube.
Method
Start by peeling your potatoes and then cutting them into roughly the size of a golf ball. For a medium-sized potato, you want to cut it in half and for a larger potato you want to cut it into 3, for any small ones just leave them whole. Now rinse them under cold water to get rid of the starch.
Place the potatoes in a large pan filled with salted boiling water and the stock pot/cube. Bring to a boil and cook until they are tender, around 7-10 minutes.
Drain the potatoes, place them back in the pan, pop a lid on and give the pan a little shake to rough up the edges. Roughing up the edges is going to give your potatoes that extra crunch that we all love.
Now leave to steam dry for a few minutes. Then cover them with a lid and place them in the fridge till you are ready to roast them. Placing them in the fridge will get rid of any moisture left in the potatoes.
When you are ready to cook your potatoes take them out of the fridge and place them on one side while you preheat the over to 200℃ . In your roasting tray pour enough fat to cover the bottom of the tray in an even layer around, then pop it in the oven to get hot, around 10 minutes.
When the fat is hot remove the tray from the oven and carefully place your potatoes in the tray and turn them in the fat to coat all the potatoes. Make sure that none of the potatoes are touching each other, they need space so that the heat can get all around them. If need be used 2 separate roasting trays so to not overcrowded them. Season generously with salt and pop back in the oven for 40 minutes to an hour or till golden and crispy all over. Be sure to check on them every so often to give them a turn in the fat.
5 minutes before the end of cooking throw in a handful of herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme whatever herbs you like along with some garlic cloves still in their skin.
Once the potatoes are ready, take them out of the oven and season them with salt, then get them to the table while they are nice and hot and crispy.