Getting your roast potatoes spot-on is an art form.
Nothing ruins a delicious roast dinner more than disappointing potatoes. We all know how important it is to get them perfectly crispy on the outside while maintaining that inner fluffiness that makes them so mouth-wateringly tasty.
If you look for roast potato recipes for two seconds online, you’ll find hundreds of people claiming to have the number one method. Some say the choice of oil makes all the difference, while others claim it’s all down to how to rough up the spuds before they go in the oven.
But with Christmas around the corner and scrumptious roast potatoes more important than ever, there’s one other thing you can do to make sure your spuds really knock it out of the park this year.
According to a chef on TikTok, adding one ingredient to your pan of water when boiling your potatoes can take them to the next level, ensuring they taste out of this world alongside your turkey and veg.
According to Sam Way, all you need to do is throw in a few peeled and crushed garlic cloves when boiling to give your spuds some extra flavour. The chef also whizzed up a delicious dusting of herbs he added to his potatoes while they were roasting.
His recipe serves 6-8 people and can be found in full below. He specifically uses King Edward potatoes as he claims they “crisp up the best” and roast in goose fat, although this can be substituted for duck or beef fat.
Ingredients
- 2kg King Edward potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
- A few garlic cloves, peeled and crushed in the palm of your hand
- 500g goose/duck/beef fat
- A few sprigs of rosemary, stalks removed
- Zest of 1 lemon
- A generous sprinkling of sea salt
Method
Add the potatoes to a pot with a pinch of salt and the garlic cloves. You can also add some rosemary sprigs here as an optional extra. Cover the spuds with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook for around 10 minutes or until fork tender but not falling apart.
Preheat the oven to 200C (gas mark 6) and strain the boiled potatoes, leaving to steam dry in a colander for a few minutes. Tip them back into the dry pot, cover with a lid, and shake lightly to rough them up – as this is what will give you the crispy edges.
Add goose fat to a baking tray, place in the oven, and preheat the oil for 15 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and tip in the potatoes. Coat each potato in the fat and then cook for 60-75 minutes, turning every 20 minutes to keep them evenly coated.
While cooking, prepare the rosemary salt by blending together or finely chopping the rosemary, lemon zest and salt. Once the potatoes are cooked, remove them from the tray with a slotted spoon and toss them in a bowl with a sprinkling of the rosemary salt.
In the caption of his video, Sam wrote: “This is THE perfect potato for any roast or Christmas dinner, or simply to go alongside a bowl of rich gravy. Enjoy!”
And commenters couldn’t wait to try out the recipe for themselves, with many saying they always have issues with their potatoes going “soggy” so they’ll be giving Sam’s trick a go to see if it works.
One person said: “My potatoes always come out soggy and not crispy. Following these directions next!”
Another added: “Definitely giving this a go.”
