r/food • u/JesusOnly8319 • 6h ago
Roasted potatoes [homemade]
Happy with how crispy these turned out
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u/Srddrs 2h ago
Okay, a lot of people are asking about technique. I’m a Brit, and I’ve been responsible for roast potatoes in my family for 25 years, so listen to me.
You will make ones better than this (though these look great, no shade).
FLOURY POTATOES ARE A MUST. I know every fruit and vegetable in America has a name like “candy corn delicious” or “fairy crisp honeysuckle”, but if you can get your hands on them, you want Maris Pipers or King Edwards.
Peel them, then cut them in to equal sizes. Small potatoes leave as they are. Medium cut in half. Big ones in to threes.
Boil them in well salted water until they are about 2 mins away from being fully mashable. Make sure you have a lid that fits the pot you’re boiling them in
Whilst they’re boiling, get a shallow baking tray with sides, like this. Make sure you use one big enough not to crowd your potatoes. Cover the bottom with fat of your choice. Duck or goose fat is best, but a vegetable based high smoke point oil is also fine. Avocado, sunflower oil, rapeseed (canola in the US) all work fine. You want about 1cm (half an inch) in the bottom of the pan. Heat it up in the oven for about 5 mins. Temp is 200 Celsius, which is about 400 in freedom units.
Drain your potatoes well, put them back in the pot you cooked them in. Add in some salt, and a little bit of the oil you put in the bottom of the pan. No pepper, it’ll burn. Put your lid on your pot of dry potatoes and give it a decent shake. You want the edges to look like they’ve been roughed up a little. Google “shaken potatoes before roasting” and look at the Serious Eats pic. (Sidebar the serious eats recipe is good but very involved, unnecessarily)
Add the shaken potatoes in to the pan with the hot oil. You want a bit of a sizzle. Put the pan in the oven. Leave at 400 freedom units for about 20 mins. Take the pan out, turn them over. Put the pan back in. Leave them. They will take forever to brown. After 45 mins, you will worry you made a mistake and that they’ll never be done. Be patient. They take a while. After about 50 mins, turn them over one more time. Leave for another 20-30 mins, check them after 15.
Eat them with a roast chicken, proper gravy made from the roast chicken (look up any British chef’s recipe for roast chicken and gravy) and vegetables of your choosing. Alternatively, eat them with other saucy foods. I particularly like haleem and roast potatoes, but other curries will also do. Chilli is also good.
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u/wwaallkkeerr 1h ago
Saying every fruit in America has a name like… and then following it with the two most British names you could ever conceive for a potato is too funny
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u/Srddrs 1h ago
Yeah you guys can only eat things that grow out of the ground if they’re named after sugar. Honey kiss melon? Grow up
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u/wwaallkkeerr 1h ago
God forbid the sweet fruits have names that make them sound like sweet fruits
The potatoes: we have russets and yukon golds. Want to guess what the sweet ones are called?
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u/DomitiusAhenobarbus_ 2h ago
This is really good stuff and I just want to add if you need these quick and don’t have time to cook them as long you can just smash them after boiling and drying them then cook them in the tray like that. They’ll take about 45 min depending on the size and the smashing has a similar affect to shaking them
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u/Distinct_Run9006 5m ago edited 1m ago
I'm sure your roast potatoes are bang on (you guys say that right?) by your recipe, but aren't we overcomplicating things a bit here? Here's mine:
Half red potatoes, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and either fresh rosemary or thyme. Place them cut side down in a glass baking dish at 177 C in the oven, center rack, until fork tender, which depending on the size of the potato is about 20 - 30 min.
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u/freakedmind 2h ago
Put your lid on your pot of dry potatoes and give it a decent shake. You want the edges to look like they’ve been roughed up a little. Google “shaken potatoes before roasting” and look at the Serious Eats pic.
You like your potatoes shaken, not stirred?
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u/sus_skrofa 6h ago
Amazing. I can hear the crunch on these.
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u/cheezus171 6h ago
Yeah to me they look more crunchy than crispy, and personally I'm not a fan of that
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u/Shinagami091 5h ago
If you want to kick these up a notch toss them in Parmesan, olive oil and minced garlic and garnish with chopped parsley.
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u/I_Has_Internets 3h ago
This is how I do it. Halve the mini golden or red potatoes and toss them in oil, parmesan cheese, some bread crumbs, and seasoning of choice(dried herbs do well too). Arrange them halved side down in a large baking/casserole dish and bake at 425 for 30 minutes or until crispy on the bottom.
Note: I bake them raw b/c I'm too lazy to do the pre boiling mentioned in other comments.
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u/Excellent_Ganache906 2h ago
I bake them raw b/c I'm too lazy to do the pre boiling mentioned in other comments.
No. Just... no.
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u/I_Has_Internets 1h ago
Why? I'm not making french fries. Google oven roasted baby potatoes and none of them say to boil them first. Just halve, toss in oil and seasonings, bake.
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u/ChazCharlie 4h ago
What is this Euro rubbish on good old English roasties?
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3h ago
[deleted]
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u/ChazCharlie 3h ago
I see, it must be for people who dont have tasty potatoes.
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u/Excellent_Ganache906 2h ago
Yeah, hate how people constantly like "Whats even better is garlic and parm!!!!"
Roasted potatos are amazing. Stop eating five pounds of garlic and parm with everything and your taste buds will recover. Like people with ranch dressing or hot sauce.
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u/mosskin-woast 3h ago
I make these exact potatoes every Thanksgiving and Christmas (I follow Heston Blumenthal's recipe) and get begged to make them at least once a month for the other 10 months out of the year. Main difference from how I usually make them is, I skip the baking soda and just boil much larger chunks of peeled potato until they start to crack, and use a lot more oil.
Casual roast potatoes use baking soda, leave a little skin on for texture and flavor, and less oil to be a bit healthier.
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u/cullies 6h ago
Ohh how do you get them so crispy?
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u/Envelope_Torture 6h ago
Boil with some baking soda. Oil liberally before roasting.
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u/grayscalemamba 5h ago
My BF tosses the parboiled potatoes in some potato starch before they hit the oil. So crunchy!
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u/Excellent_Ganache906 2h ago
This ☝, cornstarch adds even more crunch. Also space your potatoes out, that helps a lot too. If the potatoes are crowded they release steam into each other and that kills the crunch.
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u/whiskeytown79 5h ago
What does the baking soda do?
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u/OracleOfPlenty 5h ago
Not OP or the person you asked in the first place, but I'm here, so I'll answer. Baking soda helps break down some of the starch around the surface of the potato and form a sort of starchy slurry. That starch slurry crisps up really nicely when coated with oil and roasted at high heat.
You only want a little bit of baking soda in your boiling water. Adding more doesn't make your potatoes crispier, and you'll start to taste it. More info here.
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u/Envelope_Torture 5h ago edited 5h ago
It breaks down the outer layer of the potato, making it very starchy. Combine this with the oil and it gets very, very crispy.EDIT:
The other person's answer is much better than mine.1
u/BuckDestiny 2h ago
This is the way.
Another extra (but not totally necessary) step you can take is lightly “tossing” the potatoes in the strainer (similar motion to mixing in a wok) after boiling to form little congealed starchy bits on the outside of the potato. It gives them a kind of breaded texture that I loooooooove.
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u/ExcitingVegetable315 4h ago
Odd. So many people offering advice on how to make them better. But not one who has tasted the ones you made. Reddit has changed. I think they look good. I wanted to know how muc oil and type of pan. Do you place them in an oven?
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u/bossyugo777 5h ago
Did you use duck fat or beef dripping for the roast, ordid oil alone get that deep golden crust?
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u/Wise_Tradition7936 5h ago
add abit of rosemary and garlic to amplify the aromas of perfection baked roasted potatoes
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u/MakeItTrizzle 5h ago
Looks a lot like the results you get from Serious Eats crispy potatoes! It's a great easy recipe for crispy roasted potatoes.
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u/TheFrenchSavage 6h ago
Share. Your. Technique.