Cypriot style oven roast potatoes with saffron

Crispy and slightly caramelized, with a burnished yellow color and a saffron smell

Treat yourselves to a nice plate of hot food that only needs 45 minutes to prepare and cook

Materials:

 

-1 kg of small, round potatoes

-Olive oil (for frying)

-3 tablespoons of fresh butter for sautéing

-1 tablespoon of sugar

-1 tablespoon of saffron (0.25gr)

-1 water glass of aromatic white wine

-Salt and coarsely-ground black pepper

 

Step 1:

 

Peel the potatoes, wash them with lots of water and dry them off on a kitchen cloth. Fry them whole in the olive oil until a thing soft crust is created, even if they are not necessarily cooked. Take them out of the frying pan and place them on absorptive paper, pressing down on them with a fork gently in order to break them up ever-so-slightly.

 

Step 2:

 

Warm up the fresh butter in a big, clean pot. Add the potatoes and stir them well so that they can absorb the butter. You add the salt, pepper and sprinkle with sugar. Add the saffron to the glass containing the aromatic white wine  and empty it carefully in the pot. Turn up the heat to max and cook the potatoes, stirring from time to time, carefully, in order for them not to fall apart. You let the wine evaporate, until only butter is left in the pot. You stir them once or twice more, and they are ready to serve.

 

Hint: In Cyprus, they cook the potatoes with their crust and add coriander.  But the essence of it all in this case is to shake the whole pot, holding it by both its handles so that potatoes are washed over with the sauce, absorbing it and becoming ever so tasty. Thus this stirring is the thing that makes the potatoes “Antinaktes” (Αντινακτές) from the verb “Antinasso” (Αντινάσσω) or in mainland Greek, “Tinasso” (τινάζω), which means Shake (i.e shaking the pot).

 

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