English Roast Potatoes

I’m back. Let’s pretend y’all are excited by this.

April is the cruelest month where my day job is concerned, so I’m just now coming up for air. Although I’ve cooked a few interesting things here and there, I haven’t had the time or the energy to write about them.

Until now.

This post is going to be a quick one, since there’s not a lot to this particular recipe. Even the name of the dish, Roast Potatoes, is kind of uninspiring. I suppose I could call it English Roast Potatoes, or Roast Potatoes in the English Style, to make it a bit more exciting. Even then, it’s not a blockbuster. Some of this is due to national bias, I suppose. English food—really the food of Northern Europe in general—has received a bad rap in the years since World War 2. And while some of that was once warranted, the British Isles and other Northern lands have really stepped up their game in recent years. The food in London, I can attest, is really excellent these days, and on a par with anything you’d find elsewhere in Europe. They’ve come some way from the 1940’s and 1950’s, when English culinary doyenne Elizabeth David told her readers that they would have to go to a pharmacy to buy olive oil.

But I digress. English Roast Potatoes (let’s go with that name) were something I was only dimly aware of until a recent voyage to the England, and they are amazingly good but also simple to make, rivalling the glorious French fry (or chip, since we’re being English today) but much, much easier to make. I’ve got no “original” recipe on this one, but all the major English cookery writers—Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Nigel Slater, etc.—have recipes for them. They’re particularly nice served alongside roast beast of some kind. This is the version that I’ve used for the last few years, and it’s good enough that the potatoes can potentially outshine the main dish that they accompany.

In my opinion, at least. Not to sound arrogant or anything. 

I’m not going to give precise amounts on this one (check the authors listed above if you require precision) because amounts are going to vary depending on the number of people you’re serving. But I would think 2 pounds (about 1 kg) or so would serve four people generously. And, as I heard someone say recently, it’s not rocket surgery. I’m just using two potatoes here for demonstration purposes; I typically use Russets or Yukon Golds for this, but others work, too.

You begin by peeling the potatoes, and cutting them into large chunks. If you have very small potatoes, you can just cut them in half, or even leave them whole if they’re tiny. But you do have to peel them. Take heart, though, as this is the only part of the procedure that is taxing in any way. While you’re peeling them, preheat your oven to 400F (200C).*

Put the potatoes into a sauce pan and add enough salted water to cover them by about an inch (2.5 cm). Bring this to a boil. Once it’s boiling, cook the potatoes for five minutes and then drain them.

After you drain the potatoes, they will be soft on the outside but still hard in the middle. This is what you want. Put them back in the sauce pan. Take a wooden spoon or spatula and bash them around for a minute or so. Don’t be too rough—we’re not making mashed potatoes. What you’re trying to do is scuff the outside of the potatoes so that the edges are rough and a bit pasty. This will make the potatoes crispy and take them from mere side dish to a reason for living. Trust me. Don’t skip this step.

Now, we need some fat. If you want to be health-conscious about this, you can use olive oil. It works very well, and produces excellent results; I use it all the time. But if you really want the deluxe version, you want to get some fat from a bird. I’m using some duck fat. You can often purchase it in “gourmet” shops, but this is fat I rendered from a duck breast I had cooked previously (long story). Goose or chicken fat will work as well, and if you really want to shoot the moon, bacon fat will work, too. The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is butter, because it’s likely to burn at the high heat we’re using.

Whatever fat you choose needs to be hot before you add the potatoes to it. Because I’m doing a small amount here, I put a couple of tablespoons of duck fat into my trusty cast-iron skillet and heated it up on top of the stove. If you’re making a larger quantity, put the fat onto a rimmed baking sheet and put it into the hot oven for about 10 minutes to heat up before you add the potatoes. Don’t be stingy with the fat, either; use enough to generously coat the surface of whatever pan you choose.

Put your potatoes into the hot pan; they should sizzle when they go in. Sprinkle them with a salt (to taste). Put them into the oven and bake them for about 35-45 minutes, turning them about halfway through.

When they’re done, they will be browned and crisp. Serve them as soon as possible.

On this occasion, I served them as shown above. Bon Appetìt, y’all. 

*If you are roasting a chicken or other main-dish-type-thing, you can add the potatoes to the oven and cook them at whatever temp you’re using to roast your beast. You’ll need to adapt the timing somewhat—if you’re cooking at 350, they’ll take more time, if you’re cooking at 450, they’ll take less, but don’t sweat it too much. Again, it’s not rocket surgery.