Not just a potato. This is the perfect roast potato. And if you think I'm going mad, it's because I'm mad for roast potatoes. Crispy outside and fluffy inside. We're going to do it three ways: goose fat potatoes, butter, clementine, rosemary, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. The Maris Piper is an incredible, incredible potato. Fluffy and starchy. The peeling of the potatoes, you don't need to see that. I've got them par boiling in here in salted boiling water. They're kind of that size. Cook them for about 10 minutes. The best roast potatoes I've ever made have come from a time when I almost felt I'd overcooked them and created a mashed potato. Okay, so you need to tread that line very, very, very carefully.
So, I can see they're just kind of thinking about breaking up. Pour it into the colander. This steaming part here now is also incredibly, incredibly important. It's starting to get starchy. You see it go kind of fluffy and white and little kind of flecks and flakes of broken bits of potato. These are the things that are going to give you crispy bits, and we love crispy bits and a crispy outside. Okay, really, really important. In tray number one, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, three tablespoons, lower in saturated fats. So we love that. We're going to move on. Butter and olive oil, half as much. And then a nice knob of butter. Butter is going to give you incredible flavor and a sort of lovely sweetness, but also a strong contender for gorgeousness is goose fat. You can get it in all the supermarkets. Three or four tablespoons in there. You're going to get a richer flavor. It could be pork fat. It could be beef tallow. I love all of them, but I generally sway for the butter and the olive oil, but at Christmas, I kind of go for the goose fat because it's so good.
A little secret ingredient that I do: a swig, tablespoon of red wine vinegar. It will disappear, and what's left is a really subtle kind of tang. It just helps make the perfect roast potato. Then herbs. So, let's go to the olive oil here. Get in some lovely rosemary. Put it under a hot tap. If you put it under a hot tap, it just wakes up the natural oils in the rosemary. Okay, so rosemary goes in. And of course, best friends with garlic. Leave the skin on. The skin will protect the garlic, and it will release the garlickiness very gently. The whole bulb of garlic. Trust me, guys. Then we're going to go to the olive oil and butter. Sage is a classic, beautiful, beautiful fragrant herb. That goes in. And then we've got clementine. You could use any citrus fruit, but at Christmas, clementine's particularly good. Just the zest. Lovely. That will make a difference. It's going to be really, really good. Last but not least, goose fat. Just go brave on bay leaves. Dried ones are okay. Fresh, amazing. Four, five, six. And then go in with some thyme. We're going to hit these up with some salt and pepper, olive oil, rosemary, garlic, clementine, butter, olive oil, and sage, and bay, thyme, and goose fat. Delicious.
Now, back over here. While these little bad boys are steaming hot, right, we need to chuff them up. Scratching and scraping the edge. Chuffing, right? I've made it up. Okay, look what I'm doing. Look what I'm doing. Woohoo. You see how I've beaten that up, right? So that's good. So we're going to go in while they're hot. Just mix up all of these. Absolutely gorgeous. So I'm going to cook these in an oven at about 180, 190, which is about 350 Fahrenheit. Over the period of about 50 minutes, maybe an hour, they're going to get gorgeous and golden and crispy. But after about 40 minutes, I want to show you the last little tip to make these incredible. Take the tray out of the oven after 40 minutes. Place the potato masher on top and then just let it pop and let the lovely starchy inside just puff out and then create a flatter surface area on the bottom and the top. Just do that around the whole tray and then pop it back in for another 10 minutes. You can hear the sizzle. Have a little shake up. You can see and you can hear there is crispy perfection in the house. Goose fat potatoes, the butter potatoes with the clementine. The smell in this room is off the chart. And last but not least, the rosemary, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. Crispy, fluffy, perfect, tangy, little gorgeous roast potatoes.
So, obviously, roast potatoes are only one part of the meal. If you want to look at the other parts of the meal, the gravy, the meat, different veggie options, then click the link. We got loads of wonderful recipes on jamieoliver.com and on Food Tube that celebrate all things that go with roast potatoes. But let's be honest, guys, everything in the world goes with roast potatoes. I know you feel the same way as I do. Beautiful roast crispy skin potatoes cut in such a way that they all open up, fan up, and you can flavor them in the most beautiful way. I've done this for my new cookbook at Jamie's Christmas, and you can make this any time of the year. It's really a principle. It's not just potatoes, guys. Parsnips, carrots. Today, I am brave enough to have two helpers. My little boy Buddy. Okay. And this is Petal. Say hello.
Hello. Hello. Have you ever heard the word hasselback? No. No. Didn't think so. So, I am going to get two of my beautiful spoons. I'm going to lay them down. I'm going to place the potato in between the gap to stop the knife going all the way through. So, I'm going to make little slices every half a centimeter all the way down to the little spoon. And this means that you don't slip. It's really got a perfect effect. Come and have a little look here. So, you can see what we've done here is create kind of like a crazy little open texture. Now, the great thing about that is it makes more surface area, which means it's more crispy, and I can put flavored oils in there. What do you think of that, kids? Impressed. I am using a Maris Piper potato because it's really great for roasting. Fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside, and that's exactly what you want in a roast potato or a hasselback. I'm going to put the potatoes into the tray. And these lovely kids are going to show you how to make a flavored oil. So guys, do you know what herb this is? Thyme. Good lad. I'm going to put a pinch of salt in here to create not just seasoning for this, but an abrasive kind of environment. And then I'm going to give this to Petal.
So Petal, if you can bash the living daylights out of that, create a mush for Daddy. And that immediately it sort of breaks down the herb itself, releases the oils, the flavor, and it's going to give you incredible smells. So once you've got a mush, then we can add our fat. That could be butter, turkey drippings, or olive oil. So, if you can just model that slowly round in circles. I'm going to add some oil to this. And this is going to transmit all those amazing flavors. So, what we want to do now is make sure all the cut sides are facing up. Then, we're going to pour this amazing oil. Look at the color, guys. Look at the color. And we'll just give it a toss. And of course, they're absorbing and taking on all of that beautiful flavor. And I'm going to put the cut side facing up. So, I'm going to pop this in the oven. They're going to make a really good potato, but I want to add to it. We're going to take some leftover bread, brown or white. Do you know what nuts these are? I bet you don't. Hazelnuts. Yeah, it is hazelnuts. Hazelnuts is the nut of choice, but you could use almonds. Take some more of the thyme. I'm going to pop these in the oven.
What you've got is really, really crispy bread now. And you can see how the skins on the hazelnuts have just kind of come off and they've toasted. Basically, we've created flavor and texture. Okay, there's a nice little tip to come. These potatoes here have had 45 odd minutes. And I'm going to use a little brush. Thyme, olive oil, hasselback potatoes. Now, my little helper, can you take this tray? It's not hot. And just pour it in here. Are you tall enough to get in there? It's quite a big ask. Let's help you. And then we're going to put some cheese in there. So, just a few little knobs of cheese. So, if I close this, can you turn the button, please? You can have them chunky or you can have them quite fine. And then sprinkle this on top. I'm going to put this back in the oven now. About 15 more minutes until gnarly and crispy and golden and sizzling and delicious.
Look at that. A great hasselback potato. But it's not just potatoes, guys. Parsnips, carrots. Absolutely beautiful. So, have fun with it. Let's plate these sexy fellows up. Unbelievable, joyful. This is what you're getting, guys. Super crispy. And then on the inside, super soft, super fluffy, and of course, it's absorbed all those beautiful fats and flavor from the thyme. Delicious. Have a go at those. If you've got any ways of doing it that you think are really interesting, put it in the comments box below. There were supposed to be little people to try them. Let's see what happens.
I want to show you three simple ways to make roasted veg extra special. Gorgeously golden roast potatoes, carrots with rosemary and a clementine glaze, and parsnips caramelized with honey, bay, and vinegar. We're now going to do the side dishes, right? But there's certain things I do on Christmas Eve that guarantee flavor and kind of de-stressing all the work on Christmas Day. So, I've par boiled these for 5 minutes each together. Carrots and parsnips that I dug up, but standard parsnips, so easy. I'm now going to drain the potatoes. Now, the key is with the potatoes, you want to par boil them long enough to exaggerate the fluffy inside. About 12, 13 minutes. What we're going to do is dress these in fat. That will protect them. Let's just talk about fat, because fat is flavor. And you can use a different fat on different vegetables. I'll put olive oil on my carrots today. Just a little drizzle. We can use butter on my parsnips and then goose fat on your roast potatoes. Season them with salt and pepper and then toss them in that fat. Make sure they're all nicely coated. And get some garlic on the potatoes. Leave the skins on. They'll go sweet and mild and delicate. So on Christmas Eve, we can do all this. Season it up. Dress it up in a chosen fat. And then I'll just cover that and put it somewhere cold. And it's a job out the way. Brilliant. But I'll cook these now for an hour. So the oven will be at 180 and then we can just rack them up like that. And we've still got another bit of space if we wanted to do anything else. Brilliant.
So the roast veg has had nearly an hour. So it's getting golden. We've concentrated all those flavors, which is great. But at this stage, the last 10 minutes, we can add another layer of incredible flavor so that each veggie is unique and delicious. Let's get these veggies out. Come on. So, the spuds there, parsnips looking beautiful, and the carrots. Now, I'm going to show you how to flavor layer. You can use different herbs and different flavors to make each one of these completely delicious, individual, and fantastical. You want to get the best out of the herbs. If you put them in at the beginning, they're going to be ruined by the time everything's ready, right? So, that last 10 minutes is like just perfect. So, carrots, we'll go in with rosemary, right? We can mix this up and that residual fat in the tray will just dress those herbs. A little bit of clementine, right? That juice will reduce and glaze those carrots. It will be lovely. We're going to go in with bay leaves here on the parsnips. And then a good swig of white or red wine vinegar. About a tablespoon goes in. And then a drizzle of honey. This flavor combo is phenomenal. And then the sage. It's going to go really snappy and delicious. But there's a really important thing here that I need to show you, and that is with a potato masher. We can increase crunchiness by just lightly putting a bit of pressure on the potatoes to give them more surface area. And then that way you get the crispiest, most wonderful potatoes. These roast veggies are going to be absolutely amazing. And we're going to put them now back in the oven until perfection, about 10 minutes.
But this is also the moment in real life on Christmas Day where you'd be getting ready to carve the turkey, right? You'd have your gravy on here. We can put some greens on. But what a lovely selection of veggies, right? A real celebration. What are you doing? Hello. Just doing veggies. Roast veggies. What's your favorite roast veg? Okay. Lemon. Lemon, apparently. Oh, lemon. There you go. Roast lemon for Christmas. Oh yeah, he's been naughty. What have you done? Tell me what have you done. But you still love me, do you? Oh, I love you. Yes, I love you very much. You might not want to. I broke the front piano. I was trying to do a song and the back bit fell off. Oh, yeah. So, you've broken Daddy's piano. Yeah. Okay. How could you not forgive him? Go on, go and play. Never a quiet moment in the Oliver household. It's always like that. He'll get a bit of coal for Christmas.
Okay, let's have a look at these lovely, lovely veg. Beautiful roast potatoes. Clementine and rosemary, roast carrots, and then roast parsnips with the vinegar and the bay and the honey. So, come on. Let's have a little look at a potato. Okay, they're hot. Look at that. If you just bust it open, you're going to see that world of fluff and crispiness. The sage is phenomenal. The salty outside with the goose fat, which I love. So, so good. Carrot time. Simplicity. That lovely kind of spritz of Christmas with the clementine. And then the amazing parsnip. What the vinegar does with the bay is simply a thing of beauty. Look how gnarly and beautiful the outer skin gets. Don't peel the parsnips. Oh, wow. Everything here tastes very different and very, very delicious. We've got our beautiful Brussels sprouts and greens here. I've just given you some of the ideas, hints, tips, and principles that will arm you with the confidence, I hope, to do the best veg for this Christmas ever. Amazing roast veggies and the simplest steamed and boiled veg. Easy.
