Easy Hasselback Potatoes Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why do you soak potatoes before roasting? ›

Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.

So how do you get all the flavor and texture you want from a baked potato in half the time? It is simpler than you think. Cut the potato in half. Think about it: A baked potato, whether white or sweet, is designed to be split in half and then anointed with butter, sour cream, cheese or other toppings anyway!

Parboil the Potatoes First

Parboiling helps soften the potato insides before the roasting begins, so you won't be tempted to burn the outsides in exchange for less undercooked insides. Boil the potato chunks for eight to 10 minutes—they won't be fully cooked, but they'll be ready for the next step.

The potatoes cook on the inside when you parboil, so the baking time is basically crisping them up to perfection, which we do at a high oven temperature. If the potatoes are raw, when you use a high temperature, the outside of the potatoes will burn before the inside cooks.

A: First let's talk about why cut potatoes need to be immersed in water to begin with. The reason is to prevent the potatoes exposure to air, which causes dehydration, oxidation, and discoloration. Immersing cut potatoes will also help rinse off excess starch.

If you're pressed for time, the slightly sticky, cut potatoes should be soaked for a minimum of 15 minutes. However, a longer soak time may allow more starch to be removed. So, if you can prep the fries ahead of time, a few hours of soaking can help make them even crispier.

Peel and rinse the potatoes. Then cut them into sticks by cutting the potato in 4 or 5 vertical pieces, and then cutting each piece into sticks. Place them in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Allow them to soak, 2 to 3 hours.

Adding oil to potatoes before baking is perfectly fine, just a personal preference. Without oil the Idaho russet skin bakes up crispy, with oil the skin will carry a lot of the flavor of the oil so some people have a preference for using olive oil or peanut oil.

Poke the potatoes with a fork just enough to pierce the skin so the potato won't burst when baking, especially in the microwave. Four or five times should be plenty. A potato is composed mainly of water, so poking them helps release steam as it cooks.

A: I would just skip poking the potato all together. It is very rare that a baked potato will burst if the steam can't escape.

What is the Hasselback technique? ›

Prepping potatoes Hasselback-style—i.e. making a series of evenly spaced, thin slices that go across but not all the way through—is an easy way to elevate ordinary roasted spuds.

Lay the chopsticks down on your work surface parallel to each other, as if they are train tracks. Set the potato down, running lengthwise between the two sticks. Now, you can start making your slices, using the chopsticks as guardrails to stop you from cutting all the way through the spud.

The name Hasselback comes from a restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden, named Hasselbacken, where the recipe for Hasselback potatoes was first introduced in the 1940s. This technique looks impressive, but is surprisingly easy to do; it's a great way to add a little extra flair to your favorite veggies and meats.

Peel the potatoes, keeping them whole, and ideally all about the same size (8cm). Parboil them in a pan of boiling salted water for 15 minutes – this will ensure that the insides become really fluffy. 2. Drain in a colander and leave to steam dry for 2 minutes – this will help the fat to stick to the potatoes.

In a video online, Gordon explained: “For crispy roast potatoes, you can depend on them, my tip is to parboil them, leave them to steam dry, then sprinkle them with semolina or flour, and then give them a good roughing up.”