THERE ARE few things the Irish do better than a good Sunday lunch.
And, as any good Irish cook knows, it’s all about the roast potatoes.
One of Ireland’s most popular and enduring staples, potato can be enjoyed in many different forms but few compare to a proper roast spud.
Warm, crunchy and uncommonly good, there are some among us who would probably be happy enjoying a plate of the golden-brown wonders with nothing else in between – naming no names, of course.
Yet, in the kind of revelation that could leave you questioning everything you once knew, one group of experts are claiming the unthinkable: we’ve been cooking our roast potatoes wrong this entire time.
Blasphemy and sacrilege you might say but, according to consumer organisation Choice, it’s all down to the salting and the preparation.
According to the roast potato experts over there, the salting of the spud should take place after they’ve been in the oven, rather than before.
These shocking potato-based revelations came during a lengthy Facebook post that offered up another startling revelation – apparently, roast potatoes should spend time in the fridge or freezer.
"The secret is to break down the starch on the surface of the potato and rough them up a bit to maximise their surface area by par-boiling them and giving them a good shake," their expert explained.
"But that’s only half the battle – you also need to remove as much moisture as possible, and the best way to do this is to bung your potatoes in the fridge or freezer."
Once boiled, their experts recommend putting the spud straight in the fridge or freezer "to remove moisture and prime them for roasting".
After ten minutes, they advise taking them out and mixing them with fat and oil before putting them a pre-heated oven.
You might think the key to deliciously crispy chips and roast potatoes is a good oven, but it’s actually your fridge....
Posted by CHOICE on Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Just don’t go salting though spuds!
"Salt your potatoes at the end of the cooking process - not the start," they explained.
This is down to the fact salt draws moisture from the inside of the potato to the surface resulting in soggy spuds all round.
Follow these steps though and you could end up with roast potatoes boasting a "delicious glass-like crunch" that could make you the talk of the town, never mind the dinner table.
Irish cooks may be a stubborn bunch who remain very much set in their ways but, every now and then, change is good – like now.
See More: Potato, Potatoes, Roast Potato
