Carry on Beautiful!

We all know that with Christmas dinner approaching, we need to perfect our recipes for the essentials. I’ve spent a long time making roast potatoes and had a lot of failures along the way, so today I want to share a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up! Being vegan means that I put a lot more attention to the sides, like roasties, and I want everyone to be able to bask in the beautiful crunch followed by the fluffiness inside just like I do.

The first tip is all about the prep. I pre boil my potatoes for about 15 minutes, and I put a tray with about two centimetres of oil into the oven while they boil, that gets the oil nice and hot and pre boiling means you’re guaranteed to get that fluffy inside we all want. Pre boiling also means you can do the next tip I have, which I think is most important!

Once the potatoes have boiled they’ll be softer but not cooked, so I strain them in a colander to get rid of excess water and then continue to shake them about in there. I think I stole this tip from Gordon Ramsay at some point but it basically scrapes up the surface of the potato and helps make it extra crispy. Ones the outsides look a bit fuzzy, I put around two table spoons of bread crumbs and shake it all about again, over the bin, to coat them in the crumbs!

From there it’s as simple as scooping them into the hot oil in the oven and leaving them for 25 to 30 minutes, turning once part way through! I’ve tried a lot of different recipes and tips, but these are the ones I’ve used over and over and been happiest with. If you have any other tricks please let me know, and let me know if you try any of these!

-Dana