I work at Toby Carvery and here are my top secrets to getting the best roast potatoes and perfect Yorkshire puddings
IF you are a fan of Toby Carvery roast potatoes or Yorkshire puddings, you’ll want to listen up.
On a Channel Five’s TV show Toby Carvery: How Do They Do It?, viewers got an exclusive look inside the Toby Carvery kitchens.
Skills trainer James Smith and his team have taught thousands of chefs how to make the perfect roast potatoes and in the hit programme, James revealed his tips and tricks on how to get the best potatoes and delicious Yorkshire puddings.
He explained that in order to get the perfect roast potatoes, they must be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
He said: “I’m looking for a really crispy outside and nice, white, fluffy inside.
“Crispiness is crucial.”
For James’ industrial approach, he par-steamed his roasties in a large machine for a very particular amount of time.
He continued: “We do these in our high-pressure steamer, in a tray which will let the steam circulate.
“Into the steamer, now we only want to cook these enough to soften up the outside of the potato, so we can ruffle them up and get them really crispy.
“We then press start, you start to see the steam, shut the door and they’ll be ready in about three minutes 50 seconds.”
Not a second more or less, James says that’s the perfect amount of time to soften up the outside.
We then saw James prepare for the next crucial step, that he calls ‘ruffling.’
He added: “Take the potatoes, give them a good old shake and you can see the edge of the potatoes starting to break up.
“Now this is what’s going to really crisp them up.”
When it came to Yorkshire pudding, James advised that the secret to a top Yorkie is simple – air.
For Toby Carvey’s industrial quantities, they use an industrial machine, but James explained that air is the route to the perfect Yorkshire.
He advised: “We want to get a lot of air into our Yorkshire pudding batter and that will enable us to get really, really large, big Yorkshire puddings.
“I’ve transferred it [batter] to this container and that will be placed into the fridge for at least an hour until it’s nice and rested.”
Once the batter had chilled, James revealed another crucial secret to getting the cooking of a Yorkshire pudding right.
James used hot vegetable oil and reinforced the importance of using hot oil, as he explained: “Really important you use hot oil.
“The idea is you want to seal the outside of the batter and that will capture the steam inside that mix and that’s what will give you a really good rise to your Yorkshire puddings.
“We’re looking for a really good rise to our Yorkshire puddings – we like them to be a nice golden colour.”