Making Roast Potatoes — Photos

One of my mom’s perennial holiday dinner treats was her roast potatoes, something I figured it was time to learn how to make. As such, I asked her how to do it — it is fairly easy — and adjusted the basic recipe to two generous servings, which can be multiplied and adjusted according to the number of people to be served.

Note that the recipe as presented can be easily made in a countertop convection oven — as was the case in the following series of photos at the cottage — but there may be some minor variations when scaling up to larger amounts cooked in a conventional oven.

Making the roast potatoes:

First, the oven was pre-heated to 400F:

Oven preheated to 400F
Oven preheating

Water was poured into a pot:

Water poured into a pot

Potatoes were taken out, in this case, about 400g or 3/4lb to 1lb of potatoes:

Potatoes taken out
Potatoes weighed

The potatoes were peeled:

Potatoes peeled

Peeled potatoes were placed in the water:

Peeled potatoes placed in water
Peeled potatoes placed in water
Peeled potatoes placed in water

Potato peels were collected, and in this case burned in the fireplace, since it was heating season:

Potato peels collected to place in the fireplace

Peeled potatoes were taken out one by one to slice:

Peeled potato to be sliced

Potatoes were sliced in half lengthwise:

Potato sliced in half lengthwise

… and then sliced into pieces:

Potato cut into pieces

The potato pieces were placed back into the water:

Potato pieces placed back into water

The rest of the potatoes were similarly cut up:

Potato pieces in water

The water was drained from the potatoes:

Water drained from potatoes

… and fresh water was poured in the pot to rinse the potatoes:

Fresh water poured into pot

A clean, dry towel was laid out on a cutting board:

Clean dry towel laid out

The drained potatoes were placed on the clean dry towel:

Drained potatoes placed in dry towel

The towel was folded over in order to pat dry the potatoes:

Towel folded over to pat dry the potatoes

Parchment paper was taken out:

Parchment paper taken out

An oven tray was taken out:

Oven tray taken out

The parchment paper was placed on the oven tray:

Parchment paper placed on oven tray

Margarine was taken out:

Margarine taken out

The kitchen scale was set to zero with an empty spoon on it, and then margarine was weighed out:

Margarine weighed out

A bit of margarine was picked up with my fingers:

Margarine picked up with fingers

Pat dried potato pieces were picked up one at a time and slathered with margarine and placed on the oven tray:

Potato pieces picked up and slathered with margarine
Potato pieces slathered with margarine and placed on baking tray
Potato pieces slathered with margarine and placed on baking tray
Potato pieces slathered with margarine and placed on baking tray

And as can be seen, the roughly 75g / 3oz of margarine were used up:

Measured out margarine used up

Onion salt was taken out:

Onion salt taken out

Onion salt was shaken somewhat liberally over the margarine covered potatoes:

Onion salt shaken over the potatoes

The timer on the oven was set to about 45 minutes:

Oven timer set

The tray of potatoes was placed in the oven:

Tray of potatoes placed in oven
Tray of potatoes in oven

Here is a shot of the roasting potatoes after about 25 minutes:

Partly roasted potatoes

The potatoes were turned over at this point:

Potatoes turned over

The potatoes were taken out just before 45 minutes, ready to eat:

Roast potatoes ready to eat

(Note that because of the excessive amount of parchment paper used, yes, I did have to deal with some burning parchment paper!)

Supper is served!

Supper is served

Yummy!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *