In my last tutor column I mentioned at the end that I will probably be cooking chicken for Christmas dinner this year, but the fact that I am cooking Christmas dinner at all is rather unusual.

You see, normally I would spend Christmas at home, and making Christmas dinner has long been my father’s responsibility, and dare I say his speciality. As you can imagine however, last year was not a normal year, and due to national restrictions we were not able to have our normal Christmas together as a family.

Missing my family is one thing, but at least we had Zoom and Discord and Skype and other tools so that we could at least pretend to spend time together thanks to the magic of the internet. However, it is not possible, unfortunately, to send food over Skype, and so I realised that I would be missing out on one of my favourite meals of the year. For Christmas 2019 my dad had roasted a turkey and a large gammon, but for Christmas 2020 I would be on my own.

I was not too worried about the meat, and the stuffing, as it is fairly easy to follow a recipe and get a good result. What really worried me was the roast potatoes. There are many ways to roast a potato, and so there is quite a wide variety in terms of taste and texture - I had tried roasting potatoes before and while the results were usually good, they were not the same as my father’s.  So, around December 23rd last year, I called my father on the phone to get his recipe.

I still have the original notes, which read:

They are rather disjointed, and the steps are out of order, but the main points are there.

First, the choice of potato; you want King Edwards or Maris Pipers, or another floury cultivar. What you don’t want is a waxy variety such as Charlotte.

Second, don’t fully slice the potatoes through after peeling - insert the knife about halfway and then twist, so that the potato splits naturally along the grain.

Third, simmer the potatoes until they are starting to fray at the edges, to the point where you can easily scratch them with the edge of a fork. Then take them out, drain them, and shake them in the pan to roughen them up (this makes it much easier to get a crispy potato).

Finally, use a good oil with a high smoke point, such as rapeseed oil, or duck or goose fat if you can find it. Make sure the oil is nice and hot before the potatoes go in, and be prepared to cook them for about 20 minutes longer than most recipes estimate.

Mine turned out alright last year, and having potatoes that tasted like the ones I usually have at Christmas was, I think, very helpful in terms of having something normal in that very odd time.

Let’s hope I can do it right again this year.

Do you have a special Christmas (or new year!) food that someone in your family cooks just right? Why don’t you book a Conversation and Correction class and tell me all about it!