Roast potatoes - everyone’s favourite?

I can remember walking into a neighbour’s kitchen, many years ago, to see her carefully manoeurvering a large roasting pan of hot dripping out of her oven, ready to put her potatoes in for roasting.

At the time, I’d already gone ‘healthy’  so was rather shocked by her using inches of dripping to cook her potatoes - and I noted the leg of lamb was cooking, also in a separate roasting pan of dripping.

I’d become a convert to using cooking oil and would often congratulate myself on my healthy choice.

Over the intervening years, I’ve gone through many phases and these days tend to use olive or peanut oils . . . but I tell you what, they don’t have the flavour of roast spuds cooked in a deep pan of dripping!

I’ve tried to replicate my friend’s smashed potatoes with only mediocre success. She boils the potatoes till they’re very nearly cooked right through, then squashes them till they burst open, drizzles them with olive oil, salt and pepper and oven roasts them till brown and crispy. I don’t know what I do wrong, but my version of smashed potatoes is nowhere as yummy as hers.

Now I notice that my favourite cook, Adam Liaw, has a recipe that I’m determined to try. For some reason he boils his unpeeled potatoes with 1 tspn sodium bicarbonate  - blowed if I can remember why he says he does it. And he uses oil or duck fat for the roasting.

Method

Heat oven to 200ºF. Simmer 1kg new unpeeled potatoes in a pot full of water with 1 tspn sodium bicarbonate for about 15 minutes. Drain well.

Place a sheet of baking paper into a roasting pan, add about ¹/₄ cup of oil. Place potatoes in and squash the potatoes to about 2cm thick. Season with salt and cracked pepper and drizzle with more oil.

Roast for about 40 minutes until the potatoes are browned and crispy.

Now I think about it, one of our daughters cooked spuds like this when she was home for a visit. But I think I remember it involved cooking the spuds arranged around a circle of camembert cheese in a large round casserole dish. How healthy is that? But who cares if it’s so delicious?

Glen