Perfect Roasted Potatoes | Nigella Lawson

How should I approach a recipe which is supposed to be perfect, by a chef who is openly an anti-perfectionist? The recipe in question is perfect roast potatoes and the chef is Nigella Lawson. Well, I’d manage the conundrum with a healthy dose of skepticism and let the cooking does the talking.

Nigella lists three critical factors that help to make perfect roasted potatoes. They are expected to be soft and sweet inside while golden-brown and crunchy outside. She says:

The first is the heat of the fat – if it’s not searingly hot, you don’t stand a chance, and since goose fat has a very high smoking point and tastes good, it is my annual choice here;

The second is the size of your potatoes – you want them relatively small, so that the ratio of crunchy outside to fluffy interior is optimized; and,

Finally, I think dredging the potatoes in semolina rather than flour after parboiling, then really rattling the pan around to make the potatoes a bit mashed on the surface so they catch more in the hot fat, is a major aid.

The method works. With only three ingredients (potatoes, goose or duck fat and semolina flour) and three crucial approaches (high heat, small potatoes and parboiling and dredging the potatoes with semolina), you can achieve perfection, or close to it. Except, there is one caveat.

The idea of cranking up the oven temperature to 500°F and load the potatoes in a smoking hot pan are not for the faint of heart. But who’d argue with success!

In summary, the verdict is: you don’t need to be a perfectionist as long as you’re able to execute with precision. These are easy steps to follow on the way to unlock the magic of perfect roasted potatoes. The outcome would impress any potatoes lover. However, easy doesn’t mean quick. This is why you want to do this mostly for the holidays and bring it to the table with pride.

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Perfect Roasted Potatoes by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

• 256 grams goose fat
• 1000 grams potatoes (such as King Edward's / Yukon Gold)
• 1 tablespoon semolina

Instructions

1

Preheat the oven to 250°C/230°C Fan/gas mark 9/500°F. If you don’t have a double oven, you will have to do this as soon as the turkey is out of your single oven, which, for me, is very much later than the parboiling stage.

2

Put the fat into a large roasting tin and then into the oven to heat up, and get frighteningly hot. 20–30 minutes should do it.

3

Peel the potatoes, and cut each one into 3 by cutting off each end at a slant so that you are left with a wedge or triangle in the middle.

4

Put the potatoes into salted, cold water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil, letting them cook for 4 minutes.

5

Drain the potatoes in a colander, then tip them back into the empty, dry saucepan, and sprinkle the semolina over.

6

Shake the potatoes around to coat them well and, with the lid clamped on, give the pan a good rotate and the potatoes a proper bashing so that their edges fuzz and blur a little: this facilitates the crunch effect later. I leave them to rest at this stage. If you don’t, you’ll need to have preheated the oven earlier!

7

When the fat is as hot as it can be, tip the semolina-coated potatoes carefully into it (they splutter terrifically as you put them in) and roast in the oven for an hour or until they are darkly golden and crispy, turning them over halfway through cooking.

8

If the oven’s hot enough, they may well not need more than about 25 minutes a side; but it’s better to let them sit in the oven (you can always pour off most of the fat) till the very last minute.

9

When everything else is served up, transfer the potatoes to a large (warmed if possible) serving dish and bring to the table with pride in your heart.

Notes

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/perfect-roast-potatoes