Roasted Parmesan Potatoes Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should you boil potatoes before roasting? ›

Boil chunks of potato until they're just tender, toss them none-too-gently with fat (ideally beef drippings) to rough up their surface, then roast them until they're crisp and crackling. The boiling and roughing-up steps are the real keys.

These tips are completely doable, actually pretty much fail-proof. SOAK your potato chunks in cold water. This removes some of the starch and helps get them super duper crispy. Soak them at least one hour.

In a video online, Gordon explained: “For crispy roast potatoes, you can depend on them, my tip is to parboil them, leave them to steam dry, then sprinkle them with semolina or flour, and then give them a good roughing up.”

If you over-crowded the pan so that there isn't enough space for the potatoes to rest on the pan without touching each other, it will prevent the water from evaporating and making the potatoes crispy. You can always try to broil the potatoes for 1-2 minutes to crisp them up at the end of baking if necessary.

Neutral, low-cost oil such as vegetable oil, canola oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, corn oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, etc., work well for roasting. These oils have a high smoke point, allowing the potatoes to get very hot to achieve maximum crispiness.

If the potatoes are raw, when you use a high temperature, the outside of the potatoes will burn before the inside cooks. That's why the parboiling is really important! Now these potatoes are my "basic" ones with my usual go-to seasoning.

Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.

A: The main reasons to cut the potatoes and pre-soak in water are: To allow the excess starches and sugars to be removed from the outer surface of the fry strips AND to keep the potatoes from browning prematurely from exposure to air. Covering in water helps the potato from turning a dark color.

Use parchment paper– non stick foil, or baking sheets will not do the trick. Parchment paper allows the potatoes to roast without sticking! Evenly spread out the potatoes – Don't stack them on top of one another – spread your potatoes out on the baking sheet and try not to overcrowd them.

Goose fat is one of the first choices for roast potatoes because first of all – it tastes nice! It has a really rich flavour compared to your more common vegetable oils. It's a bit like how cooking your roast potatoes in dripping from your turkey can add more flavour to your spuds too – they're both animal fats.

What are the best tasting potatoes for roasting? ›

Yukon Golds fall right in the middle of the spectrum.

This is the real beauty of the Yukon Gold, what makes them the best potatoes for roasting. The crisp. The creaminess. The texture.

And potatoes are even more confusing: you can both roast and bake a potato, but a roast potato aims for crispiness, while a baked potato aims for softness.

Roast for 1hr until golden and crisp, and don't forget to turn them occasionally to ensure they cook evenly. Here's a few tricks to try to make them even more delicious. Sprinkle your parboiled potatoes with flour. This gives potatoes extra crunch.

To have a truly marvellous roast potato, one must simply let the potato dry completely after parboiling, before roasting in extremely hot fat. If you have two ovens you can cook them separately to your roast at a different temperature.

Using Foil -

Foil traps the moisture in the potato causing the skin to be wet and the inside flavorless or gummy. Potatoes are made up of about 80% water, so sealing it up in foil does not allow enough water to escape, making it soggy.

Parboil the Potatoes First

Parboiling helps soften the potato insides before the roasting begins, so you won't be tempted to burn the outsides in exchange for less undercooked insides. Boil the potato chunks for eight to 10 minutes—they won't be fully cooked, but they'll be ready for the next step.

A general rule of thumb is to parboil potatoes until they are fork-tender but not falling apart, this can range anywhere from 15 minutes for small potatoes to 25-30 minutes for large whole potatoes.

Roasted potatoes can become soggy if the water content in the potato isn't fully cooked. Different potatoes have different water content percentages. Also, be mindful of the oil. Potatoes can react like sponges; too much oil can make your potatoes appear to be soggy.

For most potato dishes it's important to add the potatoes to cold water and allow the water to come to a boil with the potatoes in the water. The potato starch can react as soon as it comes in contact with hot water, which will promote uneven cooking and mealy potatoes.