Many Britons will believe they cracked the secret to the perfect roast potatoes years ago, but an expert swears by using one ingredient in particular. Maria Koutsogiannis is behind popular blog Food by Maria, where she shares some of her favourite recipes.
The Greek food lover shared her approach to roasties in a post last year, emphasising the importance of getting the outside nice and crispy. She recommends using either baby or russet potatoes, and the combination of crispy and soft you can achieve with them.
The “trick”, Maria says, is so add salt and baking soda in with the potatoes as you parboil them, before they go in the oven.
She recommends parboiling for 10 minutes, and though they’ll look far from the finished article by the end of it, it’s key for getting that satisfying crunch.
She warns that it’s a step “you don’t want to miss because it helps give you the perfect consistency”.
Maria explains that baking soda “makes the water alkaline which helps break down the surface of the potatoes and helps get that crispiness you want once you add them to the oven”.
She recommends using 1 table spoon for 2-2.5 lbs (around 0.9kg-1.1kg) of either Russet or Yokon Gold potatoes to serve five people.
You can find Maria’s recipe in full here.
However, there are plenty of other ways to get that crispy texture, and foodies everywhere often introduce their own twists according to taste.
Various chefs including Gordon Ramsey are partial to using semolina, a coarse flour, to achieve the effect.
A recipe shared on the Gordon Ramsey Restaurants website and suggests adding it after the potatoes have been simmered for six minutes, drained and shaken around in the colander.
He recommends 2 tablespoons-worth for 1.2kg of floury potatoes, for his recipe for four to six people.
You can find the full steps to make your roast potatoes Gordon-style here.