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Potatoes Browned under a Roasting Joint
Half boil 8 or 10 large potatoes. Drain the water from them, flour them well, and lay them in the roasting-pan in the dripping just one-half hour before the meat is ready. Baste the potatoes liberally from time to time. When they are browned on one side turn them upon the other. Before sending to table, place them on blotting-paper and serve in the same platter with the roast.
A roast-pan potato method from the era when the joint sat in an open pan of its own fat and anything else in the pan cooked in that fat. It works exactly as written in a modern oven, with two small substitutions.
- "Half boil"Simmer peeled potatoes 7-10 minutes, until a knife enters the outside inch but meets resistance at the core. Fully cooked potatoes collapse in the pan; raw ones will not soften in thirty minutes.
- Dry and rough them upDrain, return to the dry hot pan for a minute to steam off surface water, then shake hard before flouring. The floured, roughened outside is what browns; a wet potato will steam instead.
- The drippingThis assumes a roast producing a good depth of rendered fat in the pan. A lean modern joint may not give enough, so add a few tablespoons of beef dripping, goose fat or a neutral high-smoke-point oil before the potatoes go in.
- Half an hour is optimisticHalf an hour may be optimistic -- the recipe gives no temperature, because the potatoes are timed to the joint rather than to a dial. In a modern oven at the moderate heat a roast is usually finished at, allow more than thirty minutes for real colour; and since the meat should rest 15-20 minutes anyway, the potatoes can be left in at a raised heat while it rests.
- Give them roomEight to ten large potatoes crowd most roasting pans around a joint. Crowded potatoes steam. Use a second pan on the shelf below with a ladle of the dripping if need be.
- Blotting-paperOld blotting-paper was unsized and unprinted, used here purely to absorb fat. Kitchen paper on a warmed plate does the same job; drain briefly, then serve at once or the crust softens.
- Potato choiceA floury variety - russet, King Edward, Maris Piper - gives the fluffy interior this method is after. Waxy salad potatoes will brown but stay dense.
- YieldEight to ten large potatoes serve six to eight alongside a roast.