Greek Lemon Potatoes

Getting crispy potatoes with a good strong lemon garlic flavor is tricky. Not having it eat your day in the process is also tricky.

Overview

• Makes a half-pan of potatoes
• Takes about 90 min, including 15 min of babysitting

Ingredients

• potatoes ~ 2 lbs
• chicken stock ~ 4 c
• gelatine pack (if your stock is not home-made)
• 1 or 2 lemons, zested and juiced
• 1 head of garlic (6 to 8 medium size cloves), crushed
• salt
• olive oil (about 1/2 c)
• can also use some beef or pork fat for this

Technique

Preheat your oven to 400F. Use convection if you have it.

Boil, Don’t Braise

5 min prep + 10 min boil

Traditionally the potatoes are braised, but who has time for that? Boil em.

Start by washing and slicing up your potatoes however you like. Only matters that you cut them somewhat consistently. I like to do largish wedges like British chips.

You want a pot that’s wider than it is deep, with a decent fitting lid. Dutch oven works nicely. Throw the sliced potatoes, the crushed garlic, lemon zest and about half the juice in the pot. Add chicken stock to the potato pot until the potatoes are mostly covered. If you’re using store-bought stock, add a gelatine packet to the cold stock. Cover and boil until the potatoes are cooked (you can put a fork in them). About 10 minutes, depending on how big your potatoes are.

Roast And Reduce

40 min, lots of stirring near the end

• Carefully separate your potatoes from the boiling stock into a largish mixing bowl. You want to leave as much garlic and lemon zest in the liquid as possible.
• Put the liquid back on the stove uncovered & reduce to a very thick sauce.
• If you’re using beef or pork fat, melt it and mix it with your olive oil before adding it to the potatoes.
• Add more olive oil than you think is reasonable to your potatoes.
• Salt fairly generously. These are potatoes after all.
• Stir potatoes vigorously. You want some of the potatoes to break down and create a starchy coating on the other spuds. This will make them roast up crispy.

Timeshifting opportunity

If you want ultra crispy potatoes, start the day before. Once the boiled potatoes are on the half pan, let it cool and then put it in the fridge overnight. Doesn’t matter when you do the reduction as long as it’s hot and ready to go for the finishing touch.

• Put the potatoes on parchment paper on your half-pan and put it in the oven to start roasting
• Meanwhile reduce the stock until it’s extremely thick. Ideally you want to time things so that the stock has finished reducing before the potatoes finish roasting. It should be about the consistency of a jelly or pudding when done. You want to have just barely enough volume to coat the potatoes.
• Look for a deep golden color with some brown on the roasting potatoes.

Combine and Roast More

5 min or less

• Dump your hot reduced sauce into the potato mixing bowl.
• Pull the roasted potatoes from the oven. Using a spatula, carefully lift the potatoes off the pan and into the mixing bowl.
• Gently toss the potatoes with the reduced stock. You want to get the flavored reduction to spread over all the potatoes without knocking off all the crispy outer skin of the potatoes.
• Taste and adjust salt.
• Return the flavored potatoes to the half-pan, and put it back in the oven. Should be about 5 to 10 minutes in the oven.
• WATCH IT CAREFULLY This will go from perfectly crisp to burned and disgusting in an instant.
• Pull and again use spatula to lift potatoes.
• Serve immediately or keep warm uncovered (moisture is the enemy of crispy).