There are two ways of making these wonderful and
hassle-free roasties, one which is a complete
no-brainer and the other which is a tad more laboursome but ensures unfailing crispness. Take:
If you can get new potatoes, choose the smaller ones and use them whole and unpeeled. In the case of larger spuds, peel and cut them into quarters or wedges.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Place potatoes in the pan, preferably in a single layer. Drizzle olive oil over them and season well. Shake the pan until all the potatoes are evenly coated in oil. Cover pan in a sheet of tin foil and place in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes. If you have more than one layer of spuds in your pan, stir them half way through baking.
Remove tin foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes, or until you need to serve - these are equally nice when left slightly too long in the oven to brown.
Optionals:
- You can turn on the grill for the last 10 minutes or so of cooking to add extra crispness and colour.
- You can throw in any or all of the following to cook together with the spuds: garlic, slices of onion, sprigs of thyme and/or rosemary, sliced button mushrooms.
- To ensure crisp and crunchy roasties every time, bring a pan of salted water to the boil and drop in your potatoes. Cook until water starts to boil again, allow to simmer for no more than a minute and strain. Now place in the pan and cook as before. This method works better on peeled potatoes, and can be a bit of a waste of time with really small and young baby ones. (I am charged by heyoka to add that if you get the oil in the pan really hot before adding the parboiled spuds and coating them in it all over, they get even crunchier.)