Last night The Hubby and I were thrilled to have 2/3 of our children for dinner. What's more, Lovely Daughter #1 and The Boy made an excellent Christmas Eve dinner for us.
All I had to do was wash dishes. Fair trade, I'd say!
The kids prepared steaks smothered with onions and mushrooms in a red-wine sauce, roasted Brussels Sprouts, and a roasted Yukon potato dish that outdoes what I'd been doing.
Here was my plate:
Aaaand, here was my meat-loving son's plate:
Plus, he went back for seconds. Ha ha!
Here follows the potato-roasting trick that Lovely Daughter #1 taught me:
Parboiled-then-Roasted Potatoes
Preheat a large roasting pan (with a little fat of your choice--we used chicken fat, but duck fat is fabulous, if you can find it) in a fairly hot oven (400-425 degrees).
While the pan is heating up, drop the cut-up potatoes into a pot of boiling, salted water. Parboil them just about 5 minutes. (You want them to get to the stage where their sharp edges and corners are beginning to get a bit bashed up.) Drain off the water and, with the lid tightly held onto the pot, give the potatoes a vigorous couple of shakes. This further "roughens up" the potatoes.
Place the potatoes (carefully!) into the preheated pan. Stir them around a bit to coat them with the fat, then return them to the hot oven.
Roast them about 15 or so minutes, turning them over once or twice and checking for done-ness.
Cooked this way, the potatoes develop a wonderful, crusty outside and a meltingly tender inside.
Happy eating, everyone!
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