Any top tips for fabulous roast potatoes??

[mumnoone]

Had disasterous Sunday lunch yesterday but worst of all my roasties didn't cut the mustard, as it were.......any tips??

Par boil for 10 mins, put into a hot oven with vegetable oil/lard and sprinkle with salt to make them crispy. Give them at least an hour.

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always do mine in with roast so they soak up plenty of stock and wine,

Yep. Boil till they are almost falling apart (or boil normally then rough them up with a fork).

Then put into the hottest, hottest oven in the hottest, hottest oil (loads of). Roast for longer than you would imagine (sometimes needs 1.5 hours).

I think it's difficult to do good roasties in a single oven as they need to be hotter than the meat. So if you have one oven, take the meat out for the last half hour (keep it warm wrapped in foil and tea towels) and blast those pots.

heat the veg oil before you put the potatoes in (oil needs to be really hot)
cooking time is an hour or more
King Edwards & Maris Pipers seem to roast well

Cook them around the meat. Cover tin with foil for the first 45 minutes and cook at higher heat, remove foil, baste and lower oven temperature.

bit of sage does wonders too

I put them in at the same time as the meat, unless it's going to take over two hours.

Gib - that's one scary name!

My Grandma always swore by using half butter and half veg oil and do you know what?? They make the best roasties. I tried goose fat last year and they weren't as nice.

lol...hmmm I lean towards the dark ;)

Sprinkle on rosemary and rock salt, squeeze on some lemon juice, drizzle with olive oil, bake at 180 degrees in a pre-heated oven until they get nice and crispy (oh and don't forget to turn them over so they cook evenly).

Goose Fat.

Goose fat. Expensive but it can be strained and re-used several times.

Par-boil potatoes and shake them after draining to rough up the surface.

Start them off at the same temp as the meat, then put the oven up as hot as it will go as soon as the meat comes out to rest.

I have a tip..... buy Aunt Bessies.

Don't get me wrong, i'm a real homecook person who cooks from scratch and there's barely a tin in my cupboard, but when it comes to roasties and yorkshires, i'm useless. Thats where Aunt Bessie helps out

x-post, Bree!

Par boil the potatoes until they start to go 'fuzzy' round the edges.
Preheat oil for 10 mins or so (I usually put oil in, then put potatoes on the par boil).
I have a fan assisted oven and I find that using the bottom shelf at 200 degrees produces perfect roasties. For some reason they don't cook as well on the top shelf!

Par boil, really hot oven and goose fat.

See us veggies can't use goose fat, though I have heard it does make them taste fab.

I'm quite liking my new name SS - may keep it

Igo with par boil drain and shake to make fluffy edges ensure they are dry, hot goose fat et voila, perfect every time.

I do mine the delia way. Boil for 10 minutes, shake well in colinder and coat in flour, then put in hot oil.

My roast potatoes never crisped until I followed Delia's advice;

Parboil them till they are soft on the outside (5-10 mins), drain the water, put the lid back on the pan, hold it on tight and SHAKE it as hard as you can. The potatoes should go fluffy on the outside. Then roast them around the meat, or in a roasting tin with butter. They go REALLY crispy!

I always par boil mine, then roast in the top of the oven for about an hour and a half, I dont like using the roast fat, so I normally heat veg oil but then drizzle some olive oil over if they get a bit dry., the nicest ones I've had lately were when I had the oven at its hottest for the first twenty minutes to crackle my crackling, it made the spuds nice and cripsy too. Then cook at normal heat for the last hour or so.

get the right variety - there is a potato called aberdeen blue(I think) from waitrose. Parboil it not too much and then chuck it in HOT fat. it goes almost glassy on the outside, and fluffy inside. Costs more of course but it's worth it ten times over.