Sparks from the Kitchen

Typically potatoes are served for St. Patrick’s Day so I wanted to serve them but didn’t want to boil them or cook them with the corned beef.  Another recipe that caught my eye in my new book ‘Return to Tuscany’ is Luciano’s Roast Potatoes. They’re soaked then roasted then cooled then roasted again. An interesting way of cooking them-I usually just cook them once. The sentence in the recipe introduction said ‘…return them to the oven for another 15 minutes until hot and crispy on the outside’. YUM!! The flavor is great, they’re really easy to make.

I served them with these carrots and this great corned beef recipe.

Double Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients

• 2&1/4 potatoes, peeled and cut into walnut-sized chunks (size of the whole walnut, not the small halves that you eat)
• 6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 6 garlic cloves, unpeeled and lightly crushed
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Soak the potatoes in water for about 30 minutes. Drain then dry with a clean tea towel and put into a baking dish or roasting tin large enough to hold all of the potatoes and mix them around. Add the oil, rosemary and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands. Cook for 30-40 minutes until potatoes are soft in the inside.
3. Remove the potatoes from the oven and leave them to cool fo about 30 minutes.
4. Toss again and return them to the oven and cook for another 15 until hot and crispy on the outside.