Roast potatoes

Name: Roast potatoes
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Ingredients: 1.25kg large maris piper potatoes*; Olive oil; 8 cloves of garlic, bashed with the flat part of a knife or by hand (optional); 30g rosemary sprigs (optional); 15g thyme sprigs (optional); Salt; *maris piper potatoes are not readily available in Australia. King edward, sebago and dutch cream are good substitutes.

Heston Blumenthal

December 17, 2021

Time:1-2 hours

This recipe will make roast potatoes just the way I like them - with a crisp, glass-like crust and a fluffy interior. I like to add garlic, rosemary and thyme for flavour, but if you prefer your potatoes plain (kids in particular often rebel against unusual flavours in their roast potatoes), you can leave them out. It's important not to stint on the amount of oil you put in the roasting tray. The crispness on the outside of the potatoes comes from the fat that collects in cracks on their surface. So you need to provide plenty of fat so it can do just that. Some people dust potatoes with flour before they go in the roasting tray but I find this can lead to a chewier crust. That's why the potatoes are rinsed of any surface starch before they are boiled.

Ingredients

1.25kg large maris piper potatoes*
Olive oil
8 cloves of garlic, bashed with the flat part of a knife or by hand (optional)
30g rosemary sprigs (optional)
15g thyme sprigs (optional)
Salt
*maris piper potatoes are not readily available in Australia. King edward, sebago and dutch cream are good substitutes.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C. Wash and peel the potatoes and cut into quarters. Put them in a bowl under running water for five minutes to wash the starch off. Cover the potatoes with water in a large saucepan, bring to the boil and cook until very soft (about 25-30 minutes). Drain carefully and leave to cool in the colander. Pour five millimetres of olive oil into a roasting tray large enough to hold the potatoes in one layer. Place in the oven for 15 minutes. Add the potatoes to the tray with the garlic, if using. Stir to coat in the oil and place back in the oven for at least one hour, turning every 20 minutes. After one hour, add the rosemary and thyme to the pan, if using, and return to the oven for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown and crispy all over. Drain on kitchen paper; season with salt.
The recipe and photo are from Heston Blumenthal at Home by Heston Blumenthal, published by Bloomsbury, $65.