The heavenly scent of the lemon, garlic and rosemary roasting in the oven is exactly what’s called for when it never ever stops raining. So far this month only making Vietnamese crunchy salad has been this fragrant and uplifting (oodles of chopped mint and coriander). We also had a very fun secret mission to cut the rosemary from the big garden.
This recipe is by my current obsession: Mimi Thorisson’s Manger website. Mimi lives in the Medoc, France with her Icelandic photographer husband, 4 children and numerous dogs. She is French and Chinese and her recipes are delicious. I’m very very happy she has a cook book and TV series coming out this year. I cannot recommend her highly enough.
We had the potatoes with veal saltimbocca and a baked porcini salad. ‘Saltimbocca’ means ‘jump into your mouth’ which seemed apt since we didn’t get to eat until 10pm and were practically lying on the floor with exhaustion – at least the food could ‘jump’ to us. Though the potatoes looked beautiful and crunchy I found them a little heavy. We had an olive oil emergency so had to use an untried oil from the local shop. It was too rich for roasting I think so I want to make these potatoes again, either with a lighter olive oil and less time parboiling or with sunflower oil.
Rosemary garlic and lemon roast potatoes
Prep time: 5-10 mins
Cooking time: 1 hour
Budget: under £5 (potatoes £1, lemon 30p)
- Potatoes suited to roasting (maris piper, desiree)
- Rosemary – leaves picked and chopped
- 4 cloves peeled garlic
- Rind of 1 lemon
- Salt and pepper
- Light olive oil (or sunflower oil)
Preheat the oven to 200/gas mark 6. Peel and parboil the potatoes for 10 minutes. We usually parboil for longer then drain and shake the potatoes around so they get smoodgi. I wouldn’t recommend doing that for this recipe unless using sunflower oil which crisps up better. Put the potatoes, rosemary, garlic and lemon in a baking tray and drizzle with oil. Roast until golden for around 40mins-1hour. Lewis recommends wiping up any excess oil from the baking tray with kitchen towel.
Mini eats 
Baked porcini mushrooms – Mini eats
Veal saltimbocca – Mini eats
Pork chops with lemon and rosemary garlic potatoes – Mini eats
So I made these last night to have with a roast chicken and they were so amazingly delicious that I’m making them again tonight to have with a slow cooked shoulder of lamb!
Yay! The lemon is really lovely in them. Mimi Thorisson is a goddess – her recipes are w o n d e r f u l. I don’t know why but both times I’ve made them I’ve messed up the cooking – parboiled too much or not put them in oven soon enough so not ready. Depending on the lamb flavours I cannot recommend the sliced skin on roast tatties with rosemary and garlic – so so good! At anchor and hope they always served slow roast lamb with dauphinoise potatoes – v rich and decadent but totally amazing! I’ve a hankering to make that now!! Ooh and also something with stovie potatoes that Lewis aunt makes – just like dauphinoise but with stock instead of cream and really good too!! YUM