Jamie Oliver's Roasted Potatoes Are the "Perfect" Side Dish

Jamie Oliver's roasted potatoes are tailor-made for elevated throw-together dinners over the holidays. Beautifully browned, crusty, and big on flavor, they're chock full of the type of aromatic seasoning that acts as jazz hands for winter spirit.

Hailing from Potato, USA (OK, it's pronounced Lancaster, Pennsylvania), my sister and I joke about how all the food we grew up on had potatoes or corn in it. Maybe it's in my DNA, but I've never met a potato I didn't like. (I'm that scene in "Forrest Gump" where Bubba lists all the shrimp dishes, except mine are "mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, cheesy scalloped potatoes …") I roast potatoes regularly, but in Jamie's version, you toss the potatoes in a colander to scuff up their edges for bonus crispiness.

A Remarkable Flavor Combination

These "roasties" pull a 100 percent potato move in being forgiving and endlessly customizable. I tried Jamie's sage and clementine combo, but his recipe also provides directions for an olive oil and rosemary version and one with goose fat, thyme, and bay leaves.

Fresh herbs and butter take this from "Of course, everyone loves roasted potatoes" to "[Gasp] what are these roasted potatoes?!" Once I had added fresh sage, clementine peel, and garlic to the baking sheet, mere seconds passed before my boyfriend walked through the kitchen asking if I was casually making a turkey. Nope!

The clementine peel infuses the recipe with California orange grove vibes and sweet citrus flavor. I taste-tested a small piece of one with a bite-sized chunk of potato topped with a roasted sage leaf and a creamy garlic clove. For your consideration: Outstanding Performance in a Side Dish Role—Jamie Oliver's roasted potatoes.

Tips for Making Jamie's Roasted Potatoes

Jamie's method involved me rejiggering a few measurements (grams to ounces) and ingredients for this side of the pond (Maris Piper potatoes? Does she even live here?). I used the gram setting on my kitchen scale to ace culinary math class, and went with the popular stateside workhorse—the russet potato—since Maris Piper seems to be a specialty import, if it can be found anywhere at all.

If you know that winter season mandarins are clementines, I needed you on my shopping trip. Four grocery stores, 17,000 bags of Cuties, and a little web search later, I now know that the Cuties brand mandarins you find in stores between October and January are, in fact, clementines. Peeling the tippy top layer of a fruit that advertises being easy for kids to peel also requires a gentle touch I don't seem to have. Thankfully, I had an entire bag to practice avoiding the white pith while procuring the orange part (and getting a clementine spray facial).

Once the potatoes are done, you could almost forget about the garlic, still wrapped in its papery peel. But you'd miss out on my favorite part of this dish: buttery roasted garlic to smear on every bite.

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