Favourite Recipes: Heston Blumenthal 's Roast Potatoes Recipe

Heston Blumenthal 's Roast Potatoes Recipe

This is from his excellent book "In Search of Perfection" (which I got thanks to Kerry).

They're just roast potatoes, but they're quite impressive. Much crispier and crunchier on the outside, and soft and fluffier on the inside, than you typical ones. It's boiling them for a while first that does the trick.

• large maris piper potatoes, 1kg
  (he says that the variety of potato is important for the right end results. However, you don't seem to be able to get maris piper potatoes in brisbane, so I just used the standard potatoes you get in supermarkets, and they seemed to work fine)
  
• olive oil, enough to fill the roasting tray to a depth of just under 1cm
  
• garlic, 4 cloves
  
• fresh rosemary, 1 generous bunch
  
• table salt
  

• Preheat the oven
  • to 190 celcius / 375 farenheight / Gas 5
• Wash, peel, cut and rinse potatoes
  
  • Wash the potatoes thoroughly and then peel them.
    
  • Reserve the peelings and tie them in a muslin bag.
    
  • Cut the potatoes into quarters
    (the quartering's important because it's the edges that get nice and crunchy: that's why reasonably large potatoes are needed for this recipe)
    
  • Leave the quaters in a bowl under running water for 2-3 minutes (or put in a bowl of water for 15 minutes, changing the water every 5 minutes).
• Boil the potatoes
  • Bring a pan of salted water (10g salt per litre of water) to the boil
    
  • Add the potatoes and toss in the bag of peelings (they
    contain lots of flavour).
    
  • Cook for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are very soft: take them as far as you can without ending up without potato soup. (It's the fissures that form as the potato breaks up that trap the fat, creating a crunchy crust.)
• Preheat the oil
  • Meanwhile, pour the olive oil into a roasing tray (it needs to be large enough to hold all the potatoes in one layer) and place in the oven.
• Drain poatoes
  • Once the potatoes are soft, drain them in a colander and discard the bag of peelings.
    
  • Give them a gentle shake to roughen the edges and drive off any remaining drops of water.
• Roast the potatoes
  • Put the potatoes in the hot roasting tray and roll them around so that they are completely coated in oil.
    
  • Roast for an hour or so, until crisp and a lovely golden brown
    • Turning every 20 minutes.
      
    • Add the garlic and rosemary after 50 minutes.
      
• Season with salt and serve.