I promised my recipe for the lemon roast potatoes that I had on the Greek island Agistri. I have absolutely no idea of the original recipe as I didn’t ask for it – stupidly! However, this is my take on what I think it would be. This is probably as close as I will get to conjuring up something similar.
They are best served with my recipe for roast chicken and a large Greek salad.
Ingredients
Serves 4
Six medium potatoes
200ml vegetable oil
4 lemons ( 3 for the recipe and one to serve)
5 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon of plain flour
Salt – a grind or two of rock salt is best
Method
Pre heat the oven to 220C or 200C if fan
Half fill a large saucepan of water add a shake or two of salt and bring to the boil. While this is boiling chop and peel your potatoes and cut into halves. Add to the pan and par boil for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile add your vegetable oil to a roasting tray approx 28x20cm if only cooking for four people and squeeze in one lemon chopped into four. Leave the lemon quarters in the tray. Put this is the oven to heat while you drain your potatoes into a colander.
Once the potatoes are fully drained and still in the colander, shake it about a bit to fluff them up. Now sprinkle over your tablespoon of flour and shake around again. The potatoes should start to look, you guessed it – fluffy!
Carefully remove your tray of oil from the oven and slowly place your potatoes in. Do this slowly as the oil will be hot and spit if you just toss them all in straight away. We don’t want any trips to A&E!
Now baste with the lemony oil and squeeze over the juice of another 2 lemons also adding the fruit to the tray. Grind over some crunchy salt, add the garlic cloves and return the tray to the top shelf of the oven for approx 45 minutes making sure you baste every so often with the garlicky, lemony oil. I add on another 5 minutes or so cooking time and turn the oven up another 20C just to really crisp them up.
Once they look nice and crispy remove from the oven and serve with a quarter of a lemon for each person to squeeze over.
Tip: If you are making these with my roast chicken recipe under ‘mains’ simply put the potatoes in the oven on 200C / 180C fan for 40 minutes before the chicken is due to come out the oven. When the chicken is removed and resting quickly turn the oven up to 240C or 220C if fan and roast for another 10 minutes to really crisp them up.
Love To Cook With Suzi 