Ideal for filling up your guests before they slosh down too much of your good wine and enjoyable to listen to them crunch into these golden clusters of delight as a side dish. Whatever the scenario, crispy, golden pillows of potato is always the answer my friends. So roll up your sleeves and go rustle in your musty potato bag and find some potatoes that don’t have greenery sprouting from them (or is that just Little Pigs pantry?) and get to work creating crunchy, golden HEAVEN! Oink.
The Crunchiest Rosemary and Sea Salt Potatoes This World Has Ever Seen
Feeds: 2 Hungry Piglets (as a side or starter nibble).
Prep Time: 10 Mins. Cooking Time: 1.5 Hrs – 99.5% of this is passive cooking – this means the potatoes cook themselves whilst you passively watch bad reality TV shows and wait.
Ingredients of Potato Glory:
8 x Small Waxy Potatoes – discuss with your local greengrocer the perfect roasting potato they have in stock.
Sea Salt
3 x Sprigs of Rosemary
2 x Tbs Olive Oil
Ingredients of Harissa Aioli Glory:
¼ x Cup of Good Quality Aioli
½ x Tsp Harissa Paste
Method of Potato Glory:
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees with a large empty tray in it (yes we’re not joking, an empty tray piglets).
- Take your lovely little spuds and peel off their grey jackets i.e. the skin. Either pop the skin in the compost, throw on the floor for your greyhound to try and pick up with his teeth or dig it into your garden. Waste not want not piglets!
- Halve your potatoes, quarter the halves, then chop into bite sized chunks – up to you really piglets but the bigger the pieces, the longer they will cook.
- Drop your chunks of potato into a medium sized pot full of water.
- Bring to the boil and allow to bubble away until the potato pieces are just soft through when pierced with a fork. (You don’t want to overcook these or they will turn into mash and then you will have to come up with a different meal plan for your guest’s dinner).
- Now drain your potatoes well and then pour drained potatoes back into the pot.
- Pop on the lid and give the pot a really good shake to fluff up the potatoes. If you are home alone at this stage, you can use this time to act out some scenes from gangster movies. I.e. yell at the pot whilst shaking it: “WHERE IS HE HIDING???” or “WHAT HAVE DONE WITH MY MONEY!!!” etc. etc. etc. The world is your oyster in terms of movie scripts.
- Now pull your hot to trot oven tray out of the oven with a tentative trotter and drizzle over your olive oil (2 Tbs) and make sure to roll it around to coat the bottom of your pan.
- Pour your potatoes into the tray, sprinkle over your rosemary leaves and a good scrunch of sea salt (around 1 Tsp) and toss gently to coat the potatoes in olive oil.
- Pop the tray into the oven for 45-60 minutes, with the occasional shake of the pan and tossing of potatoes along the way. Roast until golden brown and crunchy.
- Mix your harissa paste (1/2 Tsp) into your aioli (1/4 Cup) in a pretty bowl – careful with the harissa, it can knock socks off trotters if you are too heavy handed with it.
- Serve your potatoes with a few extra fresh leaves of rosemary and a scrunch of sea salt along with the lovely bowl of harissa aioli. Pop onto the table and then quickly back away as your guests swarm the crunchy potato bowl.
