Sunday, November 3, 2013 – This week’s cooking class was about roasting. The main course was roasting a chicken. Except I started my cooking days 5 years ago by roasting a turkey. So this year for Thanksgiving, I was just going to do potatoes instead. Hence, roasted potatoes.
I first tried this roasted potato recipe about 8 months ago (undocumented). The first time I did this recipe, I chopped the potatoes into itty bitty pieces and roasted them for 30 minutes. They burnt up quite nicely. So this time, I decided to chop them up into larger pieces (roughly 3/4 inch) and roast them for only 20 minutes. They came up much nicer this time. Some of the potatoes got a little bit crispy and brown, but for the most part, you were eating potatoes.
The original recipe also called for rosemary, parsley, garlic, and a few tablespoons of olive oil. But rosemary is awesome, so I took out the parsley and doubled up on the rosemary. No tears were shed for parsley.
I got a mixed bag of whites, golds, reds, and purples. Because even though the russet is the classic baked potato, pretty much any other kind of potato is best for, well, anything else.
Cooking class also left me with a bag of potato skins (of the russet variety). So I figured I’d roast those too. I dabbed on some salt, olive oil, garlic, and yes, more rosemary, and roasted them alongside the chopped potatoes for 20 minutes. In retrospect, 20 minutes was way too long. They dried up and turned into glorified potato chips. Also, maybe less salt next time.
Like I said, I was roasting potatoes for Thanksgiving. Same recipe, except I skipped the purples this time. Because purples are like 3 times the cost of whites, golds, and reds. I started with a little over 1.5 lbs of potatoes, and the Thanksgiving guests devoured them. Clearly I should roast more potatoes next time.