Mary Berry's Crunchy Roast Potato Secret
Mary Berry revealed her 'best' roast potato recipe uses one simple storecupboard ingredient for extra crunch. The technique produces golden, crispy potatoes that are praised as a dinner table hit. Perfect for home cooks looking to upgrade their side-dish game with minimal effort.
The "secret" store-cupboard ingredient is semolina, a type of coarse flour made from durum wheat. Mary Berry advises tossing par-boiled potatoes in about 50g of semolina before roasting to achieve an "ultra-crispy" exterior. The technique is featured in her cookbook "Simple Comforts," where she explains that the coarse grain of semolina creates a superior crunchy coating that plain flour can't match. This is because semolina has excellent moisture-absorbing properties, which helps to dry the surface of the potato for a crispier finish. Her method involves several key steps beyond the semolina. First, she recommends using floury potato varieties like Maris Piper or King Edward. The potatoes are par-boiled for about five to ten minutes before being drained and shaken in a colander to rough up the edges, creating more surface area for crisping. For the roasting fat, Berry uses a combination of three tablespoons of goose fat and three tablespoons of sunflower oil. She advises heating the fat in a roasting tin in a hot oven (220°C or 425°F) until it is smoking before carefully adding the semolina-coated potatoes. The potatoes are then roasted for 45-55 minutes until golden and crisp.
