My guide to making perfect roast potatoes – soft on this inside and crispy on the outside.
Has anyone noticed that the weather has become pretty chilly over the past few days? It definitely feels like Autumn has arrived. I know that some people love Autumn with it’s crisp bright mornings, falling leaves and cinnamon in everything, but I don’t. I like the Spring.
Autumn does have one huge thing going for it though, and that is the fact that I start making roast dinners again (in the summer I’d much rather have a BBQ on a Sunday evening).
In my opinion, the absolute best thing in a Sunday roast is yorkshire puddings. I could happily eat a plateful covered in gravy. But I’ve already shared my recipe for those, so onto my next favourite… the roast potatoes.
I like my roast potatoes to be fluffy and light on the inside, and crisp on the outside. Here’s a few tips to get them just how I like them…
- Use King Edwards potatoes, a big bit of me can’t help thinking that all potatoes taste the same, but I’ve used several different types and these always come out on top.
- Cut your potatoes to the right size – you need the right ratio of fluffy inside to crispy outside. I find it best when the potatoes are cut into pieces about 5cm in diameter. However, the most important thing is that all of your potatoes are roughly even in size so that they all cook at the same rate.
- Par boil the potatoes – this helps you to get the lovely fluffy inside and means you can scuff up the outside a bit to get it all crispy.
- Make sure your baking tray is big enough – you need to ensure there’s enough space for all the potatoes to have their own bit of tray. If you pile them up they won’t go crispy.
- Use just enough oil to thinly coat the bottom of the baking tray, underdo it and your potatoes won’t be crispy, overdo it and they’ll be greasy.
- Heat the oil in the baking tray before adding the potatoes. This means that the outside of the potatoes fry in the oil when you first put them in. If the oil is cold it’ll start to soak in instead.
- Turn the potatoes halfway through roasting – that way they’ll be crispy all around.
- Add seasoning – potatoes don’t have lots of flavour so you need to really bring it out. I season the water for par-boiling and then I season the potatoes twice during the roasting (once before they go in and once after I’ve turned them).
Perfect Roast Potatoes
INGREDIENTS
- 700 g King Edwards potatoes
- Olive oil - see note 1
- Salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- Peel the potatoes (700g) and chop so that they're roughly even in size (about 5cm pieces).
- Put the potatoes into a medium saucepan and cover with cold water, season with salt.
- Cover the pan and bring to the boil, once boiling continue to cook for a further 10 minutes.
- While the potatoes are boiling, pre-heat the oven to 220ºC/200ºC fan. Put the olive oil (4 tsp) into a baking tray and put the tray into the oven to heat (the tray needs to be large enough that all the potatoes have a little space - otherwise they won't get crispy).
- Once the potatoes have been boiling for 10 minutes, drain the water. Give the potatoes a gentle shake so that the edges get a little roughed up (but not too much or they'll fall apart). Remove the tray of hot oil from the oven and carefully put the potatoes into the tray of hot oil. Season with salt and return the tray to the oven for 25 minutes.
- Remove the tray from the oven, turn the potatoes. Season the other side with salt and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and serve.
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
Free From/Suitable For…
- Suitable for vegetarians and vegans
- Gluten-Free
- Dairy-Free
- Egg-Free
- Nut-Free
- Soy-Free
- Corn-Free
The ingredients for this recipe are commonly available free from all these allergens. However, please ensure you double-check allergen information for all ingredients.
Aon says
I will be following this today, your website is amazing!
Charlotte Oates says
Thanks, I hope you enjoy them.
Mandy says
These look so good. It’s only 10.45 in the morning but I really fancy a roast now! Maybe tonight…. Thanks for linking up with #CookBlogShare this week.
Charlotte Oates says
I have that problem when ever I read other people recipes. People are always making me hungry!
Cat says
Oh my goodness there look delicious. Roast potatoes are definitely my favourite type of potato! x
Charlotte Oates says
Thanks Cat, I’ve never thought about what my favourite potato type is… I think I might agree with you about roasties being the best 🙂
Ciara (My Fussy Eater) says
These look so delicious. There’s nothing better than a really crispy roast potato. yum!!
Charlotte Oates says
Thanks Ciara. They still come second to yorkshire puddings in my eyes (although it’s a close second!)
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain says
Ooh you’ve got my taste buds working over time here! We’ve not had roast potatoes yet this autumn but I definitely feel the need for some now.
We’ve stopped cooking with olive oil after we learnt that the oil changes when it hits high temperatures (we still use ours to create salad dressings and the likes). The programme we saw the advice on suggested using Rapeseed Oil but we’ve not tried that yet.
Totally agree Charlotte, Spring is by far the best month.
Angela x
Charlotte Oates says
I made a batch of roast potatoes with each potato cooked in a different type of oil and we weren’t too fussed on the flavour of the rapeseed which is why I went for olive oil.
Can you remember which programme you watched? I didn’t thing there was a problem with olive oil (used in this way) so I’d be interested to find out more.
Glad I’m not the only spring lover around here 🙂
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain says
Between hubby & I we can remember two programmes. The programme I clearly remember is Eat Well For Less hosted by Greg Wallace (in this episode http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06fvqg0 ). Towards the end of the episode the nutritionist looked at cooking oils and showed a visual display of the changes to olive oil when heated to high temperatures. She suggested using Rapeseed Oil instead.
Hubby remembers one hosted by Michael Mosley two or three month ago which was a 3 part series looking at sugar, salt and fats. I think this is the link for a brief summery of the programme (though it only talks about saturated fat in the link) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/40JkxnCNzk9bPzYTTXBWCHx/should-i-avoid-saturated-fat) I recall the programme talked mainly about saturated fats and briefly looked at oils towards the end of the programme, and suggested that heating oils can cause carcinogens. And to confuse matters hubby recalls them saying that rapeseed oil was as bad when heated (so contrary to what Greg Wallace’s nutritionist said in her piece!) and implied that cooking with Saturated Fat in moderation was possibly better!
When I googled to try to find these links for you I came across this link (http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/whats-cooking-with-olive-oil/frying-with-olive-oil/30470) which looked at the ‘myth’ of heating Olive Oil being bad for you. They concluded that it’s probably the most stable oil and doesn’t change when heated.
A post here (http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/cooking-with-olive-oil-faq-safety-flavor.html) has tried to look into the issues of cooking with olive oil and seems to have concluded that it’s OK.
It’s all very confusing – as a consumer (and food blogger of course) you just don’t know what or who to believe! Even actual science based research turns up different results depending on their slant etc.
I hope I’ve not waffled too much and that it makes a little sense (despite the contrary information available!)
Angela x
Charlotte Oates says
Thanks Angela. This is one of the very frustrating things about the internet, it’s so difficult to work out what’s fact and what’s opinion (or whether something is true in certain circumstances but is then being applied it where it shouldn’t be). Reading through some of those links I think I’ll stick with olive oil for now (seems as good/bad as everything else!)
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain says
You’re welcome Charlotte. Indeed, that’s the thing with the internet any body can write anything so nobody really has a clue as to what to believe.
Angela x
James @ HalfMarathonJames says
I’ve just noticed that on my inbox!! I’ll be checking it out now 🙂
Charlotte Oates says
🙂
James @ HalfMarathonJames says
I never knew which type of spuds to use, so from now on I’ll be using King Edwards, thanks Charlotte. Funny, my favourite part of the dish is Yorkshire puddings with gravy too.. Closely followed by roast parsnips. 🙂
Charlotte Oates says
I’ve read a lot of places that say King Edwards or Maris Piper for roast potatoes (as they’re both floury), but I definitely prefer King Edwards of the two. Did you see I published roast parsnips yesterday too!
Sue Mitchell says
The one problem often found with King Edwards is that they can be more susceptible to blight & blemishes. But each to there own…
Mel says
Ooooh, I love roast potatoes. I am a bit naughty and I always cook mine in duck fat, but I had never thought of warming the oil before putting the potatoes in the roasting tray. I’ll definitely be doing that next time!
Charlotte Oates says
Duck fat is good, but I never think to buy any in. Hope the hot oil works well for you x
Sue Mitchell says
Goose fat too..again heated first but if you want to be really healthy coconut oil is very good. We also like Maris Piper but they must be from a sack or bought loose &. Still dirty…none of those supermarket washed things!
Charlotte Oates says
I’ve only tried the supermarket Maris Pipers, maybe that’s why I prefer the King Edwards. I’ll have to try and get some Maris Pipers from my local Farmers’ Market and see how they taste. I was reading about coconut oil of roast potatoes in the Good Food magazine the month, I’m going to have to give it a try sometime.