Why It Works

Boiling the potatoes before frying cooks them through, ensuring a uniformly creamy interior beneath the crust.

Smashing the boiled potatoes exposes more edges and nooks, boosting surface area for extra crunch.

Gently pan-frying the flattened potatoes drives off surface moisture, producing a shatteringly crisp, golden exterior.

This method is make-ahead friendly: refrigerated potatoes can be re-crisped in the oven, keeping last-minute meal prep simple.

For years, I’ve been serving Ultra-Crispy Roast Potatoes for all major holidays using a technique I first read about in The River Cottage Cookbook . The idea is simple: boil chunks of potatoes in salted water until they are tender, toss them in a large bowl with some fat using a fork to bash and roughen up their surfaces, then roast until crisp. The boiling and bashing steps are key, as they add surface area to the potato chunks, allowing them to roast up with a thick, ultra-crisp shell.…