Everybody has their own way of cooking roast potatoes, whether they choose to use herbs, baking soda or an animal fat of some sort.
However, using so many ingredients can overcomplicate it and make cooking roast potatoes far harder than it needs to be to get the best results.
Stripping it down to just three ingredients, Michelin-trained chef Poppy O’Toole has shared her “ultimate roasties” recipe that promises “perfect spuds every time.” Poppy claimed that these are the “only roast potato you need in your life”.
Eager to see if I would get “perfect” results by following her recipe, I decided to make this myself.
As the recipe only called for potatoes, salt and vegetable oil it saved me a trip to the supermarkets as I already had those ingredients.
The chef said: “Forget the fancy pants bicarbonate of soda or flour, who needs herbs or animal fat… get the perfect crunchy roast potato following my simple steps. Perfect spuds every time.”
Ingredients
Four Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into equal-sized chunks
100ml vegetable oil
Plenty of salt
Method
I started by peeling the potatoes and cutting each of them three times into four roughly equal-sized chunks.
Adding the chopped-up potatoes to a pan, I gave them a wash under cold water. This helps to rinse off the excess starch and allows the potatoes to crisp up beautifully in the oven.
Once rinsed, I refilled the pan of potatoes with cold water and salted it. I then put the potatoes on to boil for 15 minutes. You can use a knife to tell if the potatoes are done. You don’t want them too mushy as they won’t hold their shape.
I then drained off the potatoes and left them to steam dry in the colander with a tea towel over it for a further 15 minutes. This is an important step as the chef claimed that this “makes them extra fluffy”.
While the potatoes were steam drying, I preheated the oven to 220°C Fan and added the oil to the baking tray before putting it into the oven to get hot.
Once the potatoes had been left for 15 minutes, I gave them a good toss in the colander to fluff them up and then carefully transferred them to the hot tray with the oil. Using a spoon I just made sure to coat all sides of the potatoes in the oil before putting them in the oven to cook for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, I took the potatoes out of the oven and turned the heat down to 180°C Fan. While the potatoes were out of the oven I gave them a turn and returned them to the oven for a further 15 minutes before checking on them again.
You may need less or more time so keep an eye out. After the 15 minutes were up, I found that the potatoes needed an extra 10 minutes before they were perfectly done.
Removing them from the oven for the final time, I could see that they were golden and crunchy. To finish them off I sprinkled over a little more salt.
Going in for the taste test, they had the perfect crunch while still being soft and fluffy inside. Given how easy this was and how great they turned out, I can definitely say that this will be my go-to roast potato recipe from now on.
