Golden Roast Potatoes

Britain and South India share a very important common bond - the love of a good Sunday lunch. 

Positively an institution in both countries, it embodies all things warm, comforting and familial. We look forward to it all week, selecting the choicest ingredients, and on the big day roll up our sleeves to help cook and recover afterwards with a snooze on the sofa. 

Like any proper British Sunday lunch, the South Indian counterpart's vital, and unmissable dish is the roast potato. Proper, crispy, golden gems. Everyone has their secret to what makes the perfect roast potato and we want to share with you our family recipe. South Indian Spiced Potatoes.

Flavoured with turmeric, chilli powder and asafoetida, these couldn't give you a better return on your time investment. Such big flavour for such little effort and expense.  #ourkindofcooking

Typically in India, we'd use a cast iron pan, and the key to get the potatoes really crispy and golden was OIL. Lots and lots and lots of it.  We're talking close-your-eyes-and-pour kind of quantities. Well, we wanted the same golden crunch but with no where near as much oil. How? Take a tip from the Brits and roast them in the oven. 

Our spiced potatoes roasted in the oven are the next level of potato perfection.  We shake things up even more by tossing ours in olive oil for extra flavour and goodness.

And for ultimate roast potato heaven, pick out the cutest, mini-est potatoes you can, roast them whole and keep the skins on! They bag all of the flavour from the spices, and make these potatoes little golden nuggets of delight.

So roast, enjoy, and stay tuned for the rest of our guide to the healthy, modern and perfect South Indian Sunday lunch.

N & N

Time: 35 mins
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 1 kg baby new potatoes
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/8 tsp asafoetida (see note below)
• 1/4 tsp chilli powder (add more if you like spice!)
• 1/8 -1/4 tsp salt (according to taste)
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1. Par boil the potatoes in boiling water for 15 mins.
2. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
3. Drain the potatoes and scatter over a baking sheet.
4. Drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle the spices over the top. Toss well so all the potatoes get coated and pop in the oven.
5. Leave them in for a good 20 minutes to crisp up nicely. The turmeric gives them a beautiful golden sheen so they look like golden eggs! 

Best enjoyed sizzling hot from the oven.

Spice Advice: Asafoetida

Asafoetida is a powder, commonly used in South Indian cooking. It's a dried resin extracted from the root of a herb. The taste is really difficult to pin down, and we wouldn't recommend you taste it by itself! Mixed in with everything else, it adds a super savoury element and rounds out the flavours, so don't leave it out! It should be easily available in all good supermarkets.