Roasted Potatoes

Here's how to get deliciously golden and crunchy roast potatoes. Most British people would swear to using goose fat for roasting, but in this recipe, inspired by Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection, I'll just use olive oil and a bit of butter. Heston served it with a roast chicken, but I went for a juicy, rare steak of entrecot with pan juice. I will post both the recipe for the entrecot and for my version of roast chicken soon.

Ingredients (2-3 people):
5 big potatoes (Heston recomends Maris Piper variety)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 twigs of fresh rosemary
Quality salt (sea salt, maldon, fleur de sel)

Clean and wash the potatoes well.

Peel them, but don't throw the peel. Put then in a clean cloth and tie a knot at the end. Bring a big pot of water to boil. Add salt as you would when boiling normal potatoes.

Cut the potatoes in to equally sized cubes about 2x2 cm. You want lots of edges, which are going to crisp up nicely. Then put the potatoes in a bowl with clean water to wash off the starch on the outside. Change the water once or twice.

Place the cloth with the peels in the boiling water. This will infuse it with all those lovely flavours from the skin. (The bag contains only the peels; the potaoes go in the pot normally).

Boil the potatoes with the peels for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are just about to break up. Look at the edges. They need to be ragged and almost crumbly. This will create a great surface for the potatoes to fry. Drain the water and let them cool off in a colander for 10 minutes.

Melt the butter in the olive oil in a ovenproof tray on the stove.

Toss the potatoes in and move them around until they are all cover with the fat on all sides. Put them in a 190º oven for 50-60 minutes. Turn them and move them around every 20 minutes.

Cut the base off two cloves of garlic. Put them under the flat side of a big knife and crush them with a light punch. Then remove the paper skin, which is very easy now.

Put the twigs of fresh rosemary on a cutting board, and with the dull side of a chopping knife, bang it a few times. You don't want to cut them, just to release their oils.

Add the garlic and the rosemary to the potatoes, stir it and give it another 10 minutes.

The potatoes are done when they are golden on the outside, but fluffy on the inside. Remove the garlic and rosemary. Salt to taste.

Here I served the potatoes with some slices of entrecot and pan juice (recipe to follow).