My grandpa refuses to have roasted chicken without roasted potatoes. Not only that, he is also very picky about how he likes his potatoes and sometimes he wants to be surprised. Because, I’m quoting, “who wants to always eat the same potatoes, right?” Right!

So, if you were me, what would you do? Disappoint your grandpa and serve him the same roasted potatoes? Of course not! You would be creative. So, if your granny is anything like mine, which means picky about his roasted potatoes 🙂 you want him to try these roasted potatoes “with surprise”. What’s the surprise? a twist of lemon. Lemon? yes. Lemon. Well, my grandpa had the same reaction the first time I described the dish to him, but he was “willing to try them“, as he said.

How the tasting process ended? he said “Maria!” (Maria is my grandma) “do you taste the lemon? it’s fine, isn’t it?”. This means he liked them. If he didn’t like the potatoes, or anything about them, he would let you know! Trust me, I love him, but he has no filters. So thanks to his approval, now here I am suggesting you to try something different. Let me know if you like them as well!

Roasted Potatoes Ingredients

Potatoes: try to use potatoes that have more or less the same size. This will help you make all the process faster while you are cutting them. In any case, you will try to chop the potatoes more or less of the same size. Having potatoes of the same size will help you during the cooking process.
Onions: they give that extra flavor that I love with potatoes .
Lemon: the protagonist here. We will use both juice and zest
Garlic: my usual recommendation is to not exaggerate with the quantity. You want your your potatoes to have garlicky perfume, not to taste just like garlic.
Herbs: to give these potatoes extra character. I recommend to choose among rosemary, sage or oregano. In this case I used rosemary, because I love it everywhere! But feel free to experiment the herbs with different recipes, they will surprise you each time!
Salt, pepper and Extra-virgin olive oil

The Best Roasted Potatoes

Cuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Cooking time

hour

Resting Time

minutes

Ingredients

1kg Potatoes
4 Yellow Onions
1 Lemon
1/2 Garlic clove
25ml Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Rosemary or Oregano

Directions

Wash the potatoes, but don’t peel the. Cut them in half lengthwise, then again in half lengthwise. If you have very big potatoes and very small potatoes, just try to cut them into pieces of more or less the same dimensions. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
Place the potatoes in a large bowl with water. Wash them for a few minutes. The water will be white because you are removing the potatoes’ starch. Drain the white water and continue washing the potatoes with new water until it gets transparent again.
Drain the potatoes from the water and dry them with a kitchen towel.
Peel the onions and cut them in half. Cut each half into 4 pieces.
Prepare the marinade. Peel the lemon and squeeze its juice. Blend the lemon juice with oil, salt, pepper and the herbs. Don’t blend the lemon zest. Keep it on the side.
Mix the potatoes and the onions with the marinade. You can do it in a large bowl or a plastic bag.
Preheat the oven to 200°.
Remove the lemon zest and transfer the potatoes with the rest of the marinate over a baking sheet (don’t forget parchment paper, so your roasted potatoes will not stick to the bottom). Spread them out and cook for about 1h, mixing once or twice.
Once out from the oven, take a spoon and spread the sauce over the roasted potatoes and mix them well.

Notes

Always check that your potatoes are cooked picking the bigger piece and inserting a fork or a knife. If it enters smoothly they are ready. If not let them a little bit more and check again. Once you think the roasted potatoes are perfectly cooked, removed them from the oven, don’t let them in even if you switch off the oven, because the cooking process will continue.