If your roast potatoes are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside the ‘game’ is already won.  The second mortgage you’ve taken out to get a big enough piece of meat to feed the family, particularly if you’ve wanted the animal ethically reared, is largely wasted.

Last weekend I had a fuller-than-usual table for Sunday lunch – it was Great-Auntie Mary’s 82nd birthday.  In accordance with ‘family tradition’, it was her choice of birthday food.  So we had roast chicken(s) plural, stuffing, gravy, cabbage, carrots, mixed root vegetable puree and roast potatoes.

On average, I suppose I cook a full ‘roast’ once a month.  Maybe.  For my mum it was a weekly event with the ‘meat’ rotated – chicken, lamb, beef, pork.  My grandparents’ too.  Monday was ‘wash day’ and ‘leftovers’.  Leftovers were cold meat, ‘bubble and squeak’ and piccalilli.

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a great ‘roastie’ cooked outside of a home kitchen.  The thing is, they just don’t hang around.  For utter perfection, they need to go from oven to table with no intervening anything.  Maybe just the time it takes to sprinkle with coarse sea salt … but that is it.  “Keep warm uncovered”, is a lie.  You lose the crispy.

To get the fluffy centre you need a ‘floury’ potato.  Maris Piper, Desirée, Romano and King Edward are all great UK choices.

Peel – and cut into even pieces.  I aim for 5cm/2½” pieces.  The straight ‘cut’ sides are actually a good thing.

Place your potato into cold salted water and bring to the boil.  Aim to have the potato in the water for a maximum of 10 minutes.

You are not aiming to boil to a mush – just soften the edges.  My mum used to ‘fork’ her potatoes to break up the surface but I just – roughly – drain and tip back into the saucepan.  It should be enough to break up the edges of the potato so it will catch the fat and give a lovely crispy finish.

I listened to an Italian TV chef on Food network this week who said once you’d roasted your cut-into-smallish-cubes potato in olive oil, garlic and rosemary you’d never par-boil again.  Rubbish.  It’s an entirely different thing.  His point was that par-boiling makes the potato soggy and a soggy potato will never crisp  up.  I’ve finished spluttering now, but he’s cooking his roast potatoes wrong.

Once you’ve par-boiled, you need to dry your potatoes off.  That’s probably on the lowest of low heat, then air dry.  Mine sit on the warming plate of my Aga.  But ‘dry’ is the key to a crispy potato.  There’s no need to add semolina or flour, you just need to wait until your potato is dry.

The next ‘secret’ is the oven temperature.  You want to whack your oven up to the hottest you can get it.  Your fat needs to be as hot as hell itself.

And the fat …

My fat of choice is goose fat.  Duck fat coming a close second.  Oddly I don’t really like beef dripping, even when I’m cooking beef.  It seemed illogical – and then Liddy said it was because they “taste like chips“.  So, that explained it..!  Yes, they do – and I don’t like that.

So, your goose fat needs to be screamingly hot.  Conveniently, any meaty joint needs to ‘rest’ to allow all those juices to re-absorb – and that’s the time to cook your potatoes.  My mum used to roast hers around the joint while we were at church …

Nope.  I won the roast potato war.  Wait until your joint is out of the oven and whack the temperature up as high as your oven will go.

One hour or thereabouts, your potatoes are ready to rush to the table.

Eat.

Roast Potatoes – there is never enough

• Floury potatoes (Desiree, King Edward, Maris Piper) – aim for a minimum of three ‘roastie’ sized pieces per person
• Goose fat – aim for a screamingly hot, shimmeringly sea of fat to approximately 1cm in depth.

Pre-heat your oven to the hottest it will go.

Wash, peel and cut your potatoes into pieces – half or quarters.  Put them in a large pan of salted boiling water, along with the peel.  Yes, really.  I wrap mine in muslin.  Parboil for 10 minutes, although this will depend on how small you have cut your potato.  You are not aiming to ‘cook’ the potato so much as to break up the edges.

Put the fat into your roasting tin and put it into the oven until it is screamingly hot.  (Aga:  because an aga cooks from above, below and both sides you need to cook in a shallow roasting tray).

Drain the potatoes and discard the peel.  Shake the potatoes about to ensure the edges are roughened.

Take the roasting tin out of the oven, but try to keep the fat hot.  Ideally, put your tray on the hob over a gentle heat. Place the potatoes in one by one – they should sizzle as they hit the pan – and baste all over.

Roast until golden and crunchy,  It’ll take about an hour.

Season.

Eat.

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Chunky chips, exactly as God intended – par-boiled and twice fried.  These are a world away from limp, greasy chips that sometimes appear under the same name.

These aren’t skinny French fries, known as ‘frites’ in my house.  (Does it help that the fat chip is a healthier choice than a thin one?)  Nor, are they ‘potato chips’, which I would call ‘crisps’.) Or even potato wedges.  They are chips ‘proper’ and the traditional accompaniment to the British institution that is ‘fish and chips’ from a time when cod was not endangered and oysters were a cheap pie filler.  For all they are a part of my culinary heritage, chips apparently originate in either Belgium or France (and I’m not joining that debate) in the seventeenth century as a substitute for fish.  Fried fish arrived in London about the same time, brought by Jewish refugees, but that’s a post for a different day.  It’s enough that I’m truly grateful!

Making them begins with the potato.  Non-negotiable, in my opinion, is that it’s a ‘fluffy’ one.  From choice I like my potatoes covered in dirt – which naturally protects them from sunlight which is what turns them green – but these are a sanitised supermarket ‘Maris Piper’ buy. There’s a school of thought which suggests you need to soak them to rid them of starch, but I consciously don’t do that.  Potatoes absorb water and I don’t like a soggy tasting chip.  When I’m actually peeling I place the potatoes I’ve done in a bowl of water, but that’s it.  Just while I’m working.  You’re still left with some pretty murky water.

And then it’s on to the cutting.  Hand-cut isn’t just a gastro-pub gimmick.  The slightly mis-shapen end bits are deliciously crunchy and an absolute positive.  My mum cut hers crinkly.  I cut mine straight.  Either way, you are looking for something about a finger-width.

Now put the cut chips into a saucepan of fresh, salted water and bring to the boil.  Turn the heat down and gently simmer until the sharp point of a knife goes in easily.  It’s impossible to be specific because how long depends on the thickness you’ve cut and your choice of potato.  (On the Aga – bring to the boil, then drain entirely and pop the potato into the Simmering Oven.)

Drain.  There’s no need to be particularly gentle because where the edges break up you’ll get the loveliest crispy bits, exactly the same as when you par-boil for roast potatoes.

As soon as they are cool enough to handle, lay them out cooling racks.  Heston Blumenthal, who popularised the triple-cooked chip here in the UK, says to let them steam-dry, then lay them on a rack and put them in the freezer for an hour.  The object of that is get rid of as much moisture as is possible.  Since I’m cooking ‘chips for seven’ I rarely have the freezer space available to do that, but leaving them to go cold at room temperature is effective – and paces the work in a way I like!  So, coffee break ….!

Fortified by caffeine, it’s time to set up the deep fat fryer.  Here’s another non-negotiable.  Beef dripping is my fat of choice because the flavour it adds is wonderful.  It’s a bit gruesome to see quite how much you need – but then you never have harboured the illusion chips are a healthy option, have you?  For my deep fat fryer I need twice the amount I’ve photographed here.  In weight terms, it’s a 3kg block.  Put your cold beef dripping into a large saucepan and, over a gentle heat, melt it.

Then pour the melted fat into the fryer.  Bring the fat up to a temperature of 130ºC-ish (I say ‘ish’ because that’s too low for my fryer to register on the dial.  Fry in small batches.  ‘Small’ because you want to avoid causing the oil to drop in temperature.

You are looking for them to look like this.  No colour to speak of, but a slight ‘skin’.  Drain onto kitchen paper.  It should gladden your heart to see there is really very little fat on the paper towel.  As before, Heston would have you put it the freezer.  If I had the space I’d think about the fridge.  As it is, I lay them back out on cooling racks as soon as I can handle them. Or – and this is one of the reasons I’m reluctant to try Nigella Lawson’s ‘cold oil’ method – it’s now perfectly possible to put the whole lot in a plastic box and pop them in the fridge for a couple of days.  Or, of course, you could freeze them.

When you are ready, heat the beef dripping to 190ºC.  In small batches once again, fry to a finish.

These took 8 minutes.  Drain.

 

And serve – with home-made tomato ketchup.  Or tartare sauce.  Or choron sauce .  But definitely malt vinegar and malden salt.

Chunky Chips – Serves as many as you have to feed!

• Maris Piper potatoes – more than you think you’ll need is my experience
• Beef dripping – my fryer takes 3kg of beef dripping in solid form.

Peel the Maris Piper potatoes and cut into finger width chips.  Put into a bowl of cold water while you finish the job.

Put the cut ‘chips’ into a pan of ‘fresh’ cold, salted water and bring up to boiling point.  Turn the heat down to a gentle simmer and cook until the potato is tender. Drain and place on cooling trays.  Leave for an hour or so.

Place the liquid beef dripping into a deep fat fryer and heat to a temperature of 130ºC-ish.  Fry the chips in small batches.  Fry until cooked, not coloured and with a slight ‘skin’. Drain.  Leave to cool.  Either store in the fridge for a couple of days/freeze/or leave for an hour.

Finally, with cold (thawed) chips, it’s time for the final fry.  Heat the beef dripping to 190ºC and fry in small portions.  Cook until crisp and delightfully perfect.  Eat.  Preferably with home-made tomato ketchup/tartare sauce/choron sauce.

When cool enough for safety – pour the sieved tepid beef dripping into a disposable foil tray.  I’m prepared to re-use my fat twice.

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