Background: I used to love to spend hours in the kitchen cooking things in the best possible way. I still love spending hours in the kitchen. I just don’t have hours to spend anymore. Some nights I have minutes. I wouldn’t describe what I do as cooking, exactly. That’s why I call these moves and not recipes. Take J. Kenji López-Alt’s “The Best Crispy Roast Potatoes Ever Recipe” as the counter example to what I do here. That’s not just cooking, that’s testing and cooking. It’s not just a recipe. It’s a textbook. I don’t have time to read the treatise on how corn starch makes everything crispier. That’s not a dig. I would love nothing more than to sit down and pour over The Food Lab. But I have to get dinner on the table and then do lunches. (I don’t even have time to be writing all this. Someone is getting cheese and crackers for lunch tomorrow.) Anyway, I don’t have the 100 minutes to make “The Best Crispy Roast Potatoes Ever.” On a good night, I have time to make potatoes that my kids will eat that come from actual potatoes and not a plastic bag. Here’s my current move.
- Get some cheap Russet baker potatoes like we all used to eat in the ’80s before everyone went nuts for Yukon Gold and baby red potatoes. Start your potatoes before anything else in the meal.
- Put them in a microwave-safe bowl with a little water in the bottom and poke with a chef’s fork.
- Cook for 6 minutes.
- Turn them after six minutes to check how done they are.
- Cook for 6 minutes.
- Turn them after six minutes to check how done they are.
- Cook for 6 minutes.
- They should be done now.
- If everyone is screaming about dinner and you are serving something that would work with baked potatoes, just stop here. If everyone is otherwise occupied, gauge how much screen time everyone has had and whether you can squeeze in another 20 minutes in the kitchen.
- If you choose to press on, line a sheet try or air fryer tray with foil.
- Cut the potatoes in half and then cube them.
- Put them on the foil, skin side down, drizzle oil on the potatoes, and sprinkle liberally with salt. You can separate them to the extent you want to and have time to. More separation means more browning.
- Toss them around a lot to rough up the surface of the potato a little and to evenly distribute the oil and salt.
- Put them in the air fryer or broiler until they are perfectly golden brown, which for me took 38 minutes, start to finish. Compare that with Kenji’s 100-minute potatoes.
Why It Works
- Despite the fact that the monoculture in which they are grown in the northwest United States can be distinctly seen from space, Russet are ok and work well for this. Obviously, they are the cheaper potatoes.
- You are basically going to steam them. The fork poke keeps them from exploding (is a thing I was told as a child).
- I cook for 6 minutes because that’s the highest number button I can push to make my microwave start instantly.
- This also helps them cook evenly. Use your chef’s fork again to rotate them 180 degrees so the bottom is the top, but also change their position in the bowl. If they are in the middle, move them to the outside, etc.
- Use these six minute intervals to make something else to go with the potatoes.
- Same as before, you are moving, rotating and gently poking with your fingers or chef’s fork.
- It took me three intervals of 6 minutes to get them done.
- I want them cooked enough to serve, as is, with just some salt and butter at this point.
- Slice them once lengthwise halfway through and push them open like they do in commercials or at mid-grade chain steak places. Let everyone top them with whatever they want.
- I do mine right on the air fryer tray, rotating in batches. Some of us like to eat our food hot. Others do not.
- The good part about this method is that, because they are already cooked, the potatoes will stick to your knife and each other as you cut them.
- The fact that they kind of stick together means you can easily control how they go on the pan. You want them mostly skin-side down for maximum flesh surface area.
- Roughing up the surface area will help with browning, I’m told. I guess it does. Some of the skins come off a little in this step. I’m ok with that. Remember when serving loaded potato skins became a thing?
- Perfectly golden brown is subjective. Perfection isn’t possible, although you might achieve golden brown, or at least a shade that your kids will eat. Consider this success. (Love you, Kenji, if you are reading this. I know you are not reading this.)
Mods:
- Obviously if you don’t have an air fryer, a broiler will work.
- You can also do this move while you are barbecuing. Put the potatoes wrapped in foil in the coal bed instead of the microwave, but then follow the rest of the steps.
- You could do a hybrid version of this if you don’t want to serve in separate cubes. You could, for example, cut them into wedges and brown and serve that way.