SUPER-CRISP ROASTED POTATOES How often you get roasted potatoes that look like they’re going to be awesomely crisp only to find that rather than crispness, all you’ve got is a papery (or worse, leathery) skin on the exterior? Roasting potatoes is not quite as easy as roasting most other vegetables See, with roast potatoes, we’ve got a different set of goals than when, say, roasting Brussels sprouts First off, we want the potatoes to be cooked through all the way to the center Fluffy and moist is what we’re after Second, we want the exterior to be extremely crisp We’re talking crisper-than-a-French-fry crisp Simply toss a potato coated with a bit of oil in the oven, and what you end up with is a potato with a paper-thin sheath of crispness around its exterior that very rapidly softens and turns leathery as internal moisture seeps through it So, what makes a potato crisp? The answer is building up a dehydrated layer of gelatinized starch on the exterior of the spud, much like when you fry a French fry ( s e e here) To this, you’ve got to parcook them, allowing their starches to soften and expand, and then recrystallize by cooling them a bit ... roasted potatoes that look like they’re going to be awesomely crisp only to find that rather than crispness, all you’ve got is a papery (or worse, leathery) skin on the exterior? Roasting potatoes is not quite as easy as roasting most... exterior of the spud, much like when you fry a French fry ( s e e here) To this, you’ve got to parcook them, allowing their starches to soften and expand, and then recrystallize by cooling them a bit ... softens and turns leathery as internal moisture seeps through it So, what makes a potato crisp? The answer is building up a dehydrated layer of gelatinized starch on the exterior of the spud, much like when you fry a French fry