Roast potatoes
For the best roast potatoes, use floury varieties, as they are starchier and make for a fluffier roast. If you are roasting a joint of meat at the same time, you may have the heat a little lower. That's fine – just cook the potatoes for slightly longer than stated here. They will always keep warm quite happily on a lower oven shelf while you finish the rest of the meal.
Ingredients
- 800g-1kg potatoes, depending on how greedy you are
- 6 tbsp fat, ideally goose or duck fat, or olive oil
- coarse sea salt
Method
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Step 1
Preheat oven to 220°C/Gas 8. Put the fat or oil in a roasting dish and place in the oven to heat up.
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Step 2
Peel your potatoes and cut them into even sized chunks. Don't make the chunks too small, 3 for a large potato, two for a small-medium potato is usually fine. Leave the very small ones whole.
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Step 3
In a large pan of salted boiling water, cook the potatoes for 8 minutes. Drain and leave to steam for a minute, then roll the potatoes around in the colander until they start to fluff up around the edges.
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Step 4
Carefully tip the potatoes into the hot fat. Use a large spoon to baste them all over with the hot fat and sprinkle liberally with salt. Roast for 50 minutes–1 hour at 200°C/Gas 6 until golden and crispy.
