Roast Any Potato to Perfection With This Method

All roast potato recipes share the same problem. You only ever use one variety of potato. But there's over 5,000 different varieties in the world. So how can one recipe cover them all? Instead of a recipe, we need something more like a technique. So in this video, I'm going to share a roast potato method with you that will work with any variety of potato. Whether you have a waxy variety, a floury one, or something in between, this method will work. I'll show you what problems to look out for and where you'll face potential hurdles. So you can have the confidence to roast some perfectly crispy roasties with light fluffy insides, no matter what variety you have. But first, let's quickly look at the two extreme ends of the roasting scale. A very basic method and a very elaborate method. For the basic version, or what I'm going to call the humble method, I'm simply peeling and cutting the potatoes into even sizes. Placing them onto a tray with a little oil and some salt. Giving them a good mix so they're evenly coated in the oil and seasoning. Then into my oven to roast for 20 minutes at 180C. After 20 minutes in the oven, they're getting a flip. And back into roast for another 20 to 30 minutes, or until the knife goes through with no resistance. That's a roast potato in its most basic form. A pretty low stress method. But the outcome isn't what I'm looking for. I have a little crisp on the outside, but some areas are not crisp at all. And the inside is far from fluffy. I think we can do better than this. This recipe is from Michelin star chef Heston Blumenthal. There's a lot more steps, so I'm going to fire through them quickly. Same again, potatoes peeled and cut to a similar size. Heston says he likes to get a lot of these flat edges with hard angular corners. These are the parts that crisp up the most. Then he rinses them under running water for a few minutes. This step isn't possible for me because I'm filming this in a relatively dry country. So I'm going to soak them instead. It should give me a similar outcome. All I'm trying to do is rinse some of the starch from the outside of the potato. Then place them onto cook in salted water. And keep cooking them, and cooking them, and cooking them. Until they start falling apart like this. This is where this recipe gets the most anxiety inducing. Because you have around a 30 second window between this and potato soup. Then I'm bringing them out to steam dry. Steam drying is just chef talk for letting them sit and steam off for a few minutes. And it's a key step to get a crispy roast potato. Now I'm putting an insane amount of oil into a tray. Heston would definitely be using some sort of animal fat here. But I'm using a vegetable oil and we'll talk more about why I'm doing this later. Then I'm placing that tray into a hot oven. Now he does say the next step is optional and only to do it if you're brave. So of course we have to do it. He says to give these super soft, super fragile potatoes a vigorous shake to ruffle them up slightly. So they look something like this. 10 minutes later the potatoes have done their steam drying. And the oil in the tray is very hot. Place the potatoes carefully into the oil and see how they sizzle straight away. Give them a baste with hot fat so they're all coated. And a light seasoning with salt. Then back into the oven at 180C for around 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I'm giving them a flip. Then back in for another 20 minutes or so. And that's that. These look incredible. Super crispy outsides and of course fluffy inside as well. It's a 9 out of 10 roast potato in anyone's book. The thing with this recipe is, taking the potatoes to near destruction when cooking them in water is risky. It's okay when you're just cooking potatoes and nothing else. But when you have 10 other things going on at once, like when you're cooking Christmas lunch, then this method feels too risky to me. It's also an insane amount of fat. Like insane. In a restaurant, okay fine. But at home it feels like overkill to me. So I think we can make a hybrid version from these two methods. I want some of the ease from the humble method. But I want something similar to the outcome of the Heston method. But crucially it needs to work with any type of potato. Waxy, all-purpose or floury. So this brings me on to what I'm calling the potato spectrum. I was lucky enough to find a variety of potato from each end of this scale. Here I have an alpha potato. It's a very waxy and firm variety. Generally difficult to use for a roast potato. But it holds its shape really well once cooked. On the opposite end of the spectrum I have a russet. This is a super floury variety and it's generally better for roasting. But it likes to fall apart. So it can be tricky to work with sometimes. Obviously I couldn't find and cook 5,000 different varieties to come up with a one-size-fits-all method. But what I can do is show you a method that works for each of these potatoes. And because they're at the extreme ends of this spectrum, whatever variety you have will fall somewhere in between these two. To get started I'm going to peel and cut them all to a similar size. I like my roast potatoes on the larger side. But if you like them smaller then this method will work in exactly the same way. And you'll see why a little later. One thing I will mention which I think a lot of people overlook is when potatoes are cut smaller you get a lot more crispiness because there's more surface area getting roasted. But you run the risk of getting a hollow roast potato. Great crispy outside, nothing on the inside. Whereas when they're cut slightly larger it can handle a more aggressive roasting in order to get those crispy edges. Next I'm placing them into cold water. And for this waxy variety I'm adding a touch more water because it'll take more time to cook. Then I'm adding a little salt and putting them onto a high heat. Once they're boiling bring them down to a medium simmer. Basically just so the pan isn't aggressively boiling otherwise the potatoes will fall to pieces. Now I'm cooking them until they're just soft but still holding their shape. So I can feel a little resistance with my knife but not much. This is the point in this method where the two potatoes will separate and go on different journeys. Because the waxy variety needs more time cooking in the water to reach this stage. Drain them off and place them straight back into the saucepan. And crucially I'm putting the lid back on the pan. This step is achieving a few things. They're going to keep on cooking in the residual heat and get close to that fall apart stage from the Heston method. But in a much safer way. There's no way they can now become potato soup because there's no more water. Also they're doing the steam drying step now as well. So I'm getting two birds with one stone. At this point I'm putting my tray into the oven to preheat. The difference here is the tray is dry, no oil at all. After 10 minutes of sitting and steaming in the pan these potatoes are ready for the next step. I'm giving them a liberal oiling and a good seasoning with salt. Then I'm feeling brave so I'm giving them a really vigorous shake in the pan. This is getting them all evenly coated in oil and salt and ruffling them up to get those crispy edges. Then onto a hot tray and a little more oil just to stop them sticking to the tray too much. This tray preheating is a great trick. It gets the roasting started as soon as the potatoes hit the tray. Then into the oven for 20 minutes at 180C. Back to the waxy variety. They're now at the same stage, just with a little resistance when I use the knife. Same as before, drain them then back into the pan with the lid on. The other thing I like about this steaming in the pan with the lid on method is they can sit here for 10 minutes but they could also sit here for an hour, even two hours. They're not going to overcook or get ruined. So it's a great method for getting some prep done ahead of time. Anyway, they've had their 10 minutes and the tray is already in the oven preheating. So now they're getting oil, salt, a good shake, onto the hot tray, a dash more oil and into the oven. At this point they're 20 minutes behind the floury tray of roasties. Speaking of, they're ready for their first flip. They're looking good so far, a little colour here and there. Then the process from here for both types is just checking on them every 15 to 20 minutes and giving them a turn and keep roasting until you're happy with how they look. This is the only downside with not using a gallon of oil to cook them in, is they do need a little more attention with turning and flipping but my heart will be a lot happier. So in the end I have four piles of roast potatoes. A humble, which looks awful and isn't even worth talking about, a Heston, then a hybrid version with floury potatoes and a hybrid version with waxy potatoes. Both these hybrid versions have come out great and it goes to show with the right technique you can roast any variety of potato and get great results. I've purposely kept the ingredients simple and consistent for this video by just using vegetable oil and salt. Using any animal fat will improve these roast potatoes but I like to think of these things as enhancers rather than integral parts of the recipe. If I use duck fat for all of these methods it'll be easy to assume that duck fat is the key to a great roast potato and as you can see that's not true and no matter what variety you have it'll fit somewhere on this potato spectrum so you can easily adapt this method to work with whatever you have. Of course the roasties are only one part of the meal so check this video out next for another one of those parts.