Nothing beats roast potatoes with a crispy golden skin and craggy edges, but it is surprisingly common for them to come out of the oven wrong. Roast potatoes may seem like a simple recipe, but precision is key and when I am cooking Sunday dinner, it is all too easy to rush and skip an important step.
However, after a trial and error I have discovered to make the best roast potatoes that requires hardly any effort. If you want roasties that are cooked to perfection, then all you need is a good tablespoon of cornflour.
It may sound bizarre, but roast potatoes can become soggy or even greasy if they still have any moisture on them when they go in the oven.
You need the potatoes to be starchy and dry as possible which makes cornflour the perfect ingredient to coat them in if you want a crispier skin.
Cornflour is highly absorbent and made of almost pure starch so will remove any excess water so you get a golden crispy crust.
This is a simple way to make your roast potatoes almost foolproof so you will always get perfectly cooked roasties no matter how busy you are in the kitchen.
How to make the perfect roast potatoes
You will need (for two people):
- Four medium potatoes
- A pinch of salt
- Two tablespoons of cornflour
- Olive oil
Instructions
To begin, I simply washed the potatoes, peeled them and then cut them roughly into equal sizes.
I then placed the potatoes in a pot filled with water, added a pinch of salt and then let them boil for 20 minutes.
I knew the potatoes were ready once they were tender and a fork could easily slide into them. After that I drained the water using a colander and then left the potatoes to sit for 10 minutes.
I have discovered the biggest mistake I was making when cooking roast potatoes is putting them straight in the oven as they will still have too much moisture so are more likely to come out soggy.
If you want the potatoes to turn crispy then you need to wait and give them time to steam dry to get rid of any excess moisture.
Also, sure to also shake the colander a few times as it will roughen up the edges which will also help make the potatoes crispier.
While the potatoes are steam drying, I set my oven to preheat at 200C. I added a few glugs of olive oil to a tray and left it in my oven as it warmed up.
You need to make sure the oil in the tray is hot before added the potatoes to cook as it will seal the skin, otherwise they can come out the oven greasy rather than crispy.
Once the potatoes were dry, I placed them in a bowl and coated them in cornflour. Be careful how much cornflour you are added as you only one or two tablespoons.
I then carefully took the tray out of the oven and added the potatoes. Be cautious and wear oven mitts as the tray will be spitting with hot oil.
The oil would loudly sizzle when you add the potatoes to the tray. Then all I did was add the potatoes to the tray and quickly put them in the oven.
I let them cook for 40 more minutes and once they came out the oven my roasties were perfectly golden brown and crispy.
I took a bite of one roast potato and it was incredibly tasty. I was happy they managed to come out the oven perfectly crispy and full of flavour.
I highly recommend adding a little cornflour to your potatoes if you want them to roast beautifully without much fuss, especially when you are juggling the rest of a Sunday dinner.