Celebrity chef James Martin has highlighted a common error that ruins roast potatoes: cooking them at the same time as the meat.
In a recent YouTube interview with Fane Productions, Martin shared his advice on achieving perfect roast potatoes.
He emphasized the importance of boiling potatoes in plenty of salted water for three to four minutes, then draining them before roasting.
"Potatoes. Plenty of water.
What you don't want with potatoes is you need to make sure the starch is taken off it so don't cram the pan full," he explained.
This step removes excess starch, resulting in a better texture.
Martin described his roasting method: "Like I said what a lot of chefs do is put them in straight into a tray with some, it's either lard, dripping, or duck fat nowadays over the top, put them in the freezer."
"When you want them, take them out, one hour in the oven, really hot oven, 200 degrees," he continued.
"When your meat's out of the oven, that's when your roast potatoes should go in.
Do not put the potatoes in at the same time as the meat otherwise everything doesn't cook well."
Timing is crucial to ensure both meat and potatoes cook properly without compromising quality.
Martin also shared his preferred method for a traditional British bacon sandwich, recalling visits to his grandmother's house.
He favors dry-cured bacon, cooked dry-fried with just a smear of butter.
"What I mean by proper bacon is this stuff. It's dry-cured fat bacon.
I pretty much dry-fry the bacon for this, so it gets all crispy with only a smear of butter," he said.
He recommends using white sliced bread, generously buttered, dismissing more elaborate bread varieties.
"You take the softened butter like this and you butter the bread. So much that it almost comes through to the other side," Martin said.
"There are few things more enjoyable than a bacon sandwich. Too many chefs are messing around doing ciabattas and focaccias and all these different sorts of stuff.
White sliced bread."
"When you eat this, you should feel as if you're about to go to heaven. A real good bacon sandwich should fill you up for the entire day."
