The key to nailing this recipe is to move like a rockstar. The key to making this recipe your own is to riff like a jazz cat.
On hitting a high note on full phat flavour: Over the last few years Babs and I have experimented with posh trendy fats such as duck fat, goose fat, and beef fat. I still prefer this olive oil and butter mix. But hey, play it your way!
Clockwise from top left: Different riffs on the basic Rockstar Roast Potato recipe -- With garlic and fried skins; with carrots and paprika; bulked up with butternut squash and courgettes and infushed with fresh rosemary; fired up with sliced red chili and cayenne pepper
Ingredients
1 large potato for each person at the table
Olive oil, preferably virgin and organic
Half stick butter, preferably salted and organic
1-2 large bulbs of garlic, peeled. Slice up ~6 large segments thinly
2-3 bay leaves
Sea salt
Black pepper
Optional: Mixed herbs, fresh rosemary, paprika, cayenne pepper, sliced red chili, other roast-ready veggies e.g. courgettes, butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots etc
Prepping the Potatoes
- Rinse the potatoes; use a soft brush to scrub off dirt as needed
- Peel the potatoes and set half of the skins aside
- Cut up the potatoes into even-sized chunks
Show Me Some Skin! (Thanks to Heston Blumenthal for the tip)
- Add a few generous swigs of olive oil to a large frying pan on medium heat (Babs insists the skins need to be "swimming" in oil)
- Add the bay leaves and sliced garlic and fry for a minute
- Add the potato skins, and fry for ~20 minutes until crispy
Parboiling the Potatoes
- While the potato skins are frying, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil
- Put a pinch of salt and a swig of olive oil to the boiling water
- Add the potato chunks and parboil for ~15 minutes. Test by sticking a fork into one of the smaller pieces. It should be soft on the outside but hard on the inside
Rockstar Moves
- Drain the water from the potato pot
- Add the contents from the frying pan into the pot with the potatoes
- Put the lid on, secure firmly, and shake the pot like a rockstar! This will distribute the flavour of the fried potato skins, and bruising the potato chunks will help them crisp their edges while roasting in the oven
Roasting the Potatoes
- Preheat oven to maximum heat
- Move potatoes from pot to a roasting tray. Create as thin a layer as you can manage for maximum crispiness
- Grind salt and pepper evenly throughout the tray
- Add any of the following ingredients evenly throughout the tray, depending on how much you want to pimp this up: Small chunks of butter, peeled garlic segments, red chili slices, mixed herbs, cayenne pepper
- If additional guests RSVP late and you need to bulk up the dish, add any selection of raw carrots, butternut squash, or courgettes (cut into evenly sized pieces) to the roasting tray
- Place in oven and roast for ~30 minutes. Check regularly to watch the thin line between a good crisp and a nasty burn
- I've read that Jamie Oliver gives the potatoes a very light mashing and additional butter bastings at each 10 minute mark, to maximise crispness. I leave it to you to decide if the extra effort is worth it.
