At the end of 2017, we discovered that Niki Bezzant's recipe for the perfect roast potato was one of the most read features on rnz.co.nz for the entire year.
Turns out our RNZ community really loves potatoes.
And so do we - in fact, as we discussed the popularity of Niki's recipe in the newsroom, a rumour started to circulate: word was that our Head of Digital, Glen Scanlon, made roast potatoes that were legendarily good.
Naturally, I invited myself to his house, in the name of journalistic accuracy, and politely demanded he prove it.
Here, you can watch Glen sharing his secrets of the perfect roast potato.
Glen learned this recipe from his mother, and his credentials are impressive: for Christmas Day 2017, he peeled and roasted 5 kg of potatoes to feed 10 people, including two children.
"And there were none left," he said.
RECIPE: Glen’s roast potatoes
You’ll need some Agria potatoes (“The absolute Ferrari of roasting potatoes,” says Glen) and nothing else will do. If you don’t have these, all dirty outsides and buttery insides, please put the rest of this recipe aside until you can make a trip to the shops.
You can either peel the potatoes or scrub them, and then you’ll need to chop them to a roughly similar size: usually just in halves.
Boil them in a pot for 20-25 minutes, poking them with a knife every now and again to see how soft they're getting. You’ll want them quite soft on the outside.
Next, pour some olive oil in a saucepan, 2 or 3 millimetres thick across the bottom of the pan. Glen knows olive oil can be a controversial choice for roasting due to its low smoke point, but he’s standing by it.
Add 30 grams of butter to the saucepan, and heat the butter and oil together over a medium heat. Chop up a good handful of fresh rosemary and thyme and mix that in too. Cook it for three or four minutes.
Before you throw the potatoes in the oven, drain them, and give them a good, hard shake inside the pot. The potatoes should fluff up nicely and don’t worry if you lose bits; they’ll become the crunchy pieces of potato in the roasting dish.
Put the potatoes in the pot back on the heat, just for a minute, to dry them out a bit further.
Then pour the oil, butter and herb mix over the potatoes in a roasting dish, and put them in the oven.
After about an hour to an hour and 10 minutes on 180 to 200 degrees C (fan bake) the potatoes should be ready. You should keep an eye on them and change the temperature as you go if you need to.
Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Of course, you can’t taste a video - so how good were they? I have eaten a lot of potatoes in my 31 years and can safely say these were probably the best I’ve ever had. The combination of butter, oil, and herbs as the coating gives the crust of the potato almost a cheese scone moreishness - even though the recipe doesn’t use flour. The outsides were flaky and the insides falling apart. Back in the office, I couldn’t stop thinking about them; my only regret was being too polite to eat more.
Got a special recipe for the perfect roast potatoes? Email your tips and a picture to socialmedia@radionz.co.nz. You can also join our RNZ Recipe Swap group on Facebook to share your thoughts or get a hand!
