Roast Potatoes

Not only can you not have Christmas without these, but you can't have Christmas without them being perfect. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, while this may be a slightly panic-striking sentiment for a dinner which is already a very stressful ordeal, unlike most things in life that require perfection, great roast potatoes are easy to achieve. That's to say, sticky, jaw-achingly crunchy and gold on the outside and sweet, soft and fluffy within. It's all do-able, there are just three simple but crucial factors at play. Firstly, the tin; unlike almost everything else that can go in the oven at Christmas, even the turkey as long as you have a baking tray underneath, you can't use a throwaway foil tray for the spuds. You need a good, heavy roasting tin that holds the heat well- cast iron is good. Secondly, the fat which you cook them in their tin must be absolutely, frighteningly, scoldingly hot before the potatoes splutter into it- and go for a fat that corresponds roughly with the meat you're cooking: for turkey or chicken choose goose, beef go for dripping and lard for pork. The final thing is the parboil. Without this, the finished spud will chew and not shatter on the tongue; the idea is to blur and soften the edges by boiling them in water then bashing them around a bit which increases the surface area to absorb fat and catch gloriously in the heat.
This is all relatively straightforward, but it can get complicated with the heavy clatter of other dishes that you need at Christmas. You need to be brutal to yourself in planning and prioritising. So, if you have only the one oven or you're using your second one to heat up serving dishes and plates (otherwise use the microwave to warm them, checking the ceramic is safe), cook two out of the three parts of the 'meat' section in the oven as you wait for the good hour or more for the turkey or other meat to come to room temperature. This means cooking your chosen stuffing in a baking dish alongside the pigs in blankets until both are fully cooked. If you can, try and take them out before they brown too much so they won't burn as you reheat them. Then stash them away to forget about them covered in foil, far away from family foragers until just before you plate up. Remove the parsnips or squash or anything other than the crisping spuds from the oven and use this space for the 10 minutes whilst you get everything ready for the table to reheat the stuffing and sausages in the scorching potato oven. Consider roast potatoes like deep-fried food, they mustn't stand around and along with the gravy, which should be ferociously bubbling until the moment it hits its jug, should be the last thing to clang on the groaning table. Basically, the turkey needs to be fully cooked and rested for at least 30 minutes wrapped in foil, the gravy must be piping hot and the potatoes crunchy, and if you've got those under wrap you can work everything else around them.
Potatoes generally don't hold well to cooking or peeling in advance, and usually I do the whole cooking and peeling malarkey on the day, but there is a way you can get ahead here. You can parboil the potatoes and rough up the edges a day or more beforehand and turn them into a bowl or other container to store. Melt a few spoonfuls of goose fat (or just vegetable oil if you want) and toss the parboiled potatoes in this along with the salt and pepper if you'd like. Cover these and leave in a cool place for 1-2 days, such as a larder or cellar. These don't take too well to being in the fridge; it's this chilly place that gives potatoes that funny texture and taste when reheated so just go for somewhere slightly below room temperature. Or, go well below room temperature and freeze the fat-slicked potatoes firstly on a tray until solid then bagged up to keep for up to 3 months in the freezer. At fraught times such as Christmas this super-organisation is not to be scorned. I tend not to peel and leave the potatoes in the salted water the night before as the potatoes could go brown or take up too much liquid- a biologist could bring up arguments of osmosis here, but don't look at me.
So, with all this in mind I recommend you draw up a schedule, working backwards from when you serve the Christmas pudding to when you start preparing the dinner (Christmas Eve or earlier) and the following recipe should be a crucial consideration.
I should mention that this recipe certainly goes far beyond yuletide appeal. My perfect Sunday lunch any time of year is plain roast chicken, these potatoes and some marrowfat or plain frozen cooked peas, warmed in a saucepan and lightly mushed with some butter. Because the chicken will take up far less room in the oven than a turkey, the oven will be less steamy and you will have less potatoes to roast (unless you're doing a double chicken affair for a bigger crowd and are cooking 2 big tins of potatoes), and then I don't mind cooking the potatoes in a preheated tin beneath the chicken for 20 minutes or so as long as I can up the heat to 200 degrees and bring the potatoes higher up in the oven while the chicken rests. I often get impatient, or anxious perhaps, that the potatoes won't get golden in enough time in which case I will increase the heat of the oven in increments- this does no harm. I find in a more empty oven, the smaller amount of potatoes (and for a lunch for 4 I do around 1 kilo of potatoes- or 1 large one per person plus 1 or 2 for luck) burn before the whole carapace becomes gorgeously golden in the fierce 220 degrees heat from the start I suggest for the recipe below which is why you can get away with cooking chicken and potatoes together if there's relatively fewer of them. For any big crowd with the larger amount below I would cook the potatoes separately from the meat in the higher heat as generally more dishes appear in a big lunch and a steamier oven acts as a cooler one, and as mentioned before crispness remains the priority.

To serve 8-12 (approx, you could get away with more)
3 kilos floury potatoes such as maris piper or King Edwards
Approx. 600g goose fat or other fat
Salt and pepper

As soon as the turkey or other joint goes in the oven, divide the fat between two large and sturdy roasting tins and leave them under the meat on racks to get hot. If your oven only accommodates two racks, place the other tin on the base of the oven and swap them halfway through the turkey's cooking time. If you're cooking a goose, place the dry tins in and divide the goose fat the bird itself renders down after it roasts for a few hours between the two hot tins. If your oven only accommodates one tin (turkeys are huge) your final last resort is to heat the fat in the tin on the stove until it's screaming hot then transfer this tin into the oven whilst the heat's blasting up for the potatoes to roast in after the turkey comes out. If you plan on utilising a second oven, heat your separate oven with the tins in it.
Hand any passing family member a vegetable peeler and get going with the potatoes. Chop them into angular shapes by cutting triangles or diamonds. This isn't as geometrical as it sounds, imagine cutting a wonky 'Z' shape into each large potato, or if you have very small ones, cut in half at a steep diagonal. For medium-sized ones use Nigella's method of cutting into three with a triangle in the middle. As you chunk them, drop them in a huge pan of cold salted water. Bring the potatoes and water to the boil and cook for 8 minutes. This time can vary though- if you're dubious, remove one and fluff it up with a fork to check. For very small cut potatoes just go for 6 minutes. Drain them in one big colander or you may even have to use two and then tumble the potatoes back into the huge pan they parboiled in. Clamp on the lid and give the pan a really vigorous shake to roughen up and blur the potatoes edges so they take up more fat and crisp up more. Leave the potatoes in this pan with the lid off for a while so they can steam dry for as long as needed.
When the meat is cooked, take it out of the oven to rest and up the heat to 220 degrees if the oven will be very full, 200 degrees if you're cooking less potatoes and other things with them. Move the two tins up into the belly of the oven. Of course if you have a double oven you can rest the turkey for less time by cooking the roasts at 200 from the start in their own oven- you still have to preheat the tins mind.
Take the two tins of searing hot fat out of the oven and spoon the potatoes into them having a small flame under each tin as you do so to reserve heat and definitely avoid overcrowding as you carefully place each potato into the fat. Generously season the potatoes with salt and pepper (though there are schools of thought that suggest only salting- the choice is yours) and flip them over so both sides have been greased. Season the other side.
Place them back into the really hot oven for as long as it takes for them to get super crispy and golden- about 45-55 minutes. You will need to flip them halfway, and again have a flame under the tins as you do this and return the potatoes to the oven; it's at this point you can up the temperature to 220. If panic sets in and the potatoes are still blonde and wet in the tin as the clock ticks, up the heat to a dragon-breath blast of 240-250 degrees and continue the potatoes on their way.  The turkey or whatever will sit resting well covered without coming to any harm for this long, in fact, on the contrary. It makes the meat more succulent, which is the perfect foil for painful crunch of the roasties.