Roast potatoes

There is a lot of debate about how to produce the "perfect" roast potato, much of it spurious. This is my method - cut your potatoes smallish, parboil them, roast them for a long time in plenty of hot oil (goose fat is great, otherwise I use olive oil). The potato variety is important too. Arran Victory 1918 are great, but not exactly widely available. In general, you want floury rather than waxy. I also like to chuck in a few cloves and some sprigs of rosemary.



Ingredients
2 kg of floury potatoes
salt
pepper
8 garlic cloves
4 sprigs of rosemary
olive oil

Method

1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters (or smaller if the potatoes are large).
2. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, parboil the potatoes for ten minutes, strain off the water and shake the potatoes in the pan a little to bash them around a bit. (But don't go over the top!)
3. Heat the oven to 180oC, put a large roasting tray or two in the oven, with plenty of oil in them.
4. When the oil is hot, add the potatoes, sprinkle plenty of salt and pepper over them, add the unpeeled garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs, and roast for 1.5 hours, turning halfway through and checking from time to time to make sure they are not burning.