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Franconia Potatoes
The potatoes should not be small, else they will bake dry and crusty. Pare the potatoes, boil them fifteen minutes, and drain well. Then place them in the baking-pan with the roast, and cook for forty-five minutes, turning often and basting with the gravy from the roast. Serve them arranged about the meat. Some cooks do not parboil the potatoes before putting them in the pan, but in that case a longer time is required for cooking.
A method rather than a formula: potatoes finished in the roasting pan alongside the meat, so the oven temperature is whatever the roast requires. The hinge is drying the parboiled potatoes thoroughly before they go in, or they steam instead of browning.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given because the roast sets it. At 325-350F, the usual range for a beef or pork roast, forty-five minutes is about right for parboiled potatoes of medium size. Above 400F check at thirty minutes.
- Choosing the potatoesThe warning against small potatoes still holds: the recipe's objection is that they bake dry and crusty. Use medium potatoes of roughly equal size, halved or quartered if large. A waxy or all-purpose variety holds its shape better than a russet.
- Parboiling and dryingFifteen minutes in water (salt it if you like; the recipe does not say to) leaves the outside soft and the centre firm. Drain, then let them stand in the hot dry pan or uncovered for a minute so the surface moisture flashes off before they meet the fat.
- Room in the panThey need to sit in a single layer with space around them and in contact with the pan bottom. Crowded or piled on top of the meat they will steam grey.
- Basting and turningTurn every fifteen minutes or so. Basting with pan gravy gives colour and flavour but also adds moisture, so use the fat rather than the thinner juices if you want a crisper surface.
- Without parboilingThe recipe says only that a longer time is required. In practice allow roughly an hour to an hour and a quarter for medium potatoes at 350F, and put them in early enough that the roast's own resting time does not leave them underdone.
- QuantityTwo medium potatoes per person is a fair allowance as a side to a roast; three if the meat is lean and the meal has little else.