Batatas Assadas no Forno (Crisp Roast Potatoes with Garlic and Rosemary)
- Prep
- 15 min
- Total
- 1 h
- servings
- 6
- Calories
- 290 kcal
- Difficulty
- Easy
When you roast a Christmas turkey, a kid or a pork loin for 8 or 10 people, the potatoes under the meat are full of flavor but nearly always soft, because they sit in the juices. The answer for festive lunches is a dedicated tray of crisp roast potatoes, golden and crunchy as if they’d been fried, but soft inside.
This recipe works every weekend of the year and relies on two simple tricks: an 8-minute parboil with a pinch of baking soda, and a tray preheated in the oven with the olive oil before the potatoes go in.
Recipe
Batatas Assadas no Forno
The never-fail side for Christmas turkey, roast kid and pork loin (and every Sunday of the year): potatoes parboiled for 8 minutes, shaken in the colander to make a starchy crust and roasted in very hot olive oil with crushed garlic, paprika and rosemary.
Ingredients
For the crisp roast potatoes
Method
Parboiling and roughing up
- 1Bring a large pot of plenty of water to a boil with 1 tablespoon of coarse salt and 1 teaspoon of baking soda. When it boils, add the cut potatoes and count exactly 8 minutes of boiling (they should be soft only in the outer 2 mm and firm in the middle).
- 2While the potatoes boil, put the empty roasting tray with the 80 ml of olive oil in the oven to preheat at 210 °C (400 °F), so the fat gets very hot.
- 3Drain the potatoes in a large colander, let them steam for 2 minutes and shake the colander hard 4 or 5 times: this roughs up the edges into a thin layer of starchy mash that turns into a very crisp crust in the oven.
Roasting in hot oil with garlic and herbs
- 4Toss the hot potatoes with the paprika, a pinch of fine salt and black pepper.
- 5Take the hot tray out of the oven and spread the potatoes in a single layer (they should sizzle when they touch the hot oil), without piling them up.
- 6Roast at 200 to 210 °C (400 °F) for 25 minutes. Turn the potatoes with a spatula, add the crushed garlic in its skins, the rosemary and the bay leaves (added halfway so they don't burn) and roast for another 15 to 20 minutes until deep golden and crisp.
Why it works
The baking soda raises the pH of the water slightly and breaks down the outer millimeter of the potato. Shaking the colander then makes a starchy film that doubles the crunch in the oven. When the dry potatoes hit oil that’s already very hot, the surface seals at once and never sticks to the tray.
Don’t crowd the tray, or the potatoes steam instead of roasting. And add the garlic only halfway: chopped garlic burns at that heat, while whole crushed cloves in their skins roast sweet and scent the oil.
Making it ahead
Parboil and shake the potatoes the day before, let them cool uncovered and keep them in the fridge. On the day, they go straight into the hot oil.
