I love these smashed BBQ spiced potatoes, and they’re a great alternative when you’ve just had chips once too often. They’re a little more time consuming than chips, but great when you’ve got the oven on for another dish. As long as they compliment the main dish, like moussaka; pastitsio, spanakopita; lasagne, or red pepper tofu wellington – they’re a definite winner. Hey, if you’ve got the oven on, you can even rustle up one of my garlic breads if you have some in the freezer.
It’s very easy, the hardest part is washing & preparing the potatoes! They need steaming first – roughly 20 minutes. I never boil vegetables – you waste loads of nutrients in the water. The potatoes need to be soft enough, but not falling apart. The next step is to tip them onto a largish baking tray. Then you can “smash” them. I’ve tried various methods, potato masher, glass jar bottom, end of a rolling pin, but the best seems to be a hammer or steak tenderiser!
Brushing or drizzling them with oil is essential to get them to brown properly. After that shaking some soy sauce, chilli sauce & other herbs and spices on them makes them super tasty. I particularly like BBQ spices from Sainsbury’s, but you could use curry powder. Adding garlic granules or onion granules works too.
They need around 30 to 40 minutes in the oven at around 180°C fan – but a little more is fine too. You can adjust the temperature to suit your other main dish is necessary. Most of my oven baked dishes are happy with 180°C so that works well. Garlic bread is good at 200°C, but works on 180°C – it just takes a little longer. I’ve also found recently that cooking for longer on convection oven gives an even better result. It helps manage things that require more heat by having them on top and the potatoes on the bottom. Generally the middle shelf is the target temperature and the bottom is 10°C cooler – top 10°C hotter.
These smashed BBQ spiced potatoes work well with most pasta dishes, and some stew style dishes. They taste great with pastitsio, lasagne, spanakopita and moussaka. So get smashing.
Smashed BBQ spiced potatoes
Equipment
- 1 Large Baking tray
- 1 hammer, rolling pin or jam jar
- 1 pastry brush optional - but gives best results
Ingredients
- 1 kg baby or new potatoes
- 30 g olive oil approx
- 5 g garlic granules
- 10 g BBQ mixed spices
- 15 g soy sauce
Instructions
- Wash thoroughly & remove any bad bits
- Steam for 20 minutes until fairly soft
- Tip onto a large baking tray
- carefully partly crush the potatoes - use a hammer, or other blunt instrument to do this - don't over do it just partially is good.
- either drizzle or brush with olive oil
- sprinkle any herbs & spices you like. BBQ spices are good, but also garlic granules, soy sauce, paprika, chilli sauce, polenta etc.
- bake at 180°C for around 30 to 40 minutes - until nice and brown. They're already cooked, so it's more a question of browning the potatoes and spices. It works fine on fan, but slightly slower on convection with them on the bottom can work even better.
