Persillade Potatoes

Side Dish

Small new potatoes roasted until golden and just crisp on the outside, then tossed in a persillade, flat-leaf parsley and garlic in olive oil, in the last few minutes of cooking so everything becomes fragrant and slightly caramelised. Scattered with red onion and finished with flaky salt.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Total Time 50 minutes mins

Servings 4

Ingredients 

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For the potatoes

• 800 gr new potatoes small, washed and halved
• 3 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
• 1 red onion
• flaky salt
• black pepper

For the persillade

• 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
• salt

Equipment

baking tray

baking mat

mixing bowl

knife

chopping board

Instructions

1. Roast the potatoes

• Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180°C fan. Toss the halved potatoes in the olive oil, season generously with salt and pepper, and spread cut-side down in a single layer on a lined baking tray. Don't crowd them, give each potato enough space to roast rather than steam. Roast for 30 to 35 minutes until golden and cooked through, turning once halfway.

2. Make the persillade

• While the potatoes are in the oven, finely chop the parsley leaves and garlic together on the board until you have a fairly fine, fragrant mixture. Transfer to a small bowl and stir in the olive oil and a pinch of salt. The persillade should be loose and vibrant, not a paste. Set aside and let the flavours come together while the potatoes cook.

3. Add the persillade and finish

• About 8 minutes before the potatoes are done, scatter the red onion rings over the tray. Spoon the persillade over the potatoes and toss everything together on the tray so the garlic and parsley coat the potatoes evenly. Return to the oven for the final 8 minutes. The parsley will wilt slightly, the garlic will soften and lose its rawness, and everything will smell wonderful. Keep a close eye on it, the garlic can catch and burn if left too long.

4. Serve

• Tip onto a serving dish, scraping up any golden bits from the tray. Finish with a generous pinch of flaky salt and serve immediately.

Notes

• Adding the persillade in the last 8 minutes rather than at the start is the key step here. It gives the garlic enough heat to soften and sweeten without burning, and keeps the parsley from turning dark and bitter.
• Degerming the garlic, removing the small green shoot from the centre of each clove, is worth doing. The germ is what makes garlic bitter and gives you that harsh, lingering aftertaste. Split the clove in half and pull it out with the tip of a knife.
• New potatoes work best here as they hold their shape and have a natural sweetness that works well with the garlic. Waxy varieties like Charlotte or Jersey Royals are ideal.
• Don’t skip the flaky salt at the end. It makes a noticeable difference to the final dish.
• This works as a side dish for roast chicken, grilled fish, lamb chops, or just about anything off the barbecue.

About this recipe

Persillade potatoes are a French side dishes that appears on the table frequently and disappears before anything else does. The combination is ancient and super tasty: crispy roasted potatoes finished with garlic and parsley at the last moment. The red onion scattered over in the final minutes of cooking softens and caramelises at the edges which adds a gentleness that balances the punch of the garlic. It is a small addition that makes the finished dish noticeably better.

What persillade actually is

Persillade is something I grew up with and it is fundamental in French cooking. The name says exactly what it is: “persil” (parsley) and “ail” (garlic). It’s then mixed with a good olive oil and drizzled onto anything you like, like this recipe to become this proper potatoes parsley garlic oil mixture. It is used across the whole of France, in varying forms, to finish everything from sautéed mushrooms to grilled scallops, from pizza to escargots. If there is a single flavour combination that defines French home cooking more than any other, persillade is probably it.

Its origins are in the south of France, where parsley and garlic have always grown abundantly, and where the instinct to combine them and add them to things at the last moment developed into a culinary habit so deeply ingrained it barely needs thinking about. French cooks do it without measuring, without consulting a recipe. A handful of parsley, a couple of cloves of garlic, a glug of olive oil. It’s pure happiness juice.

When to add the persillade to your roasted potatoes

With roasted potatoes with herbs, the technique is particularly important. Persillade added at the start of cooking will burn and tastes harsh. The garlic turns bitter and the parsley turns dark and acrid. The key is to add the persillade in the final few minutes of roasting. The garlic has then enough time to soften and sweeten in the oven heat while the parsley wilts slightly and transfers its flavour to the hot potatoes without losing its freshness. The result of these garlic and parsley potatoes tastes far more considered than the preparation time indicates.

Choosing the right potatoes

As you know, different potatoes serve different dishes. This roasted potatoes recipe asks for new potatoes. Their thin skins crisp up nicely in the oven, their flesh stays dense and slightly sweet, and they absorb the garlic and parsley flavour without becoming heavy. In France, the equivalent dish might use “Rattes”, the small, firm, walnut-flavoured potato grown in the Loire. And others will use “Charlotte” or “Jersey Royals”, which are both excellent substitutes.

The right equipment for roasted potatoes with herbs

Crispy persillade potatoes need a flat, heavy baking tray that conducts heat directly and evenly to the base of each potato from the moment the tray goes into the oven. A thin or flimsy tray produces uneven results: some potatoes browning quickly while others steam in the moisture they release. Good equipment simply give better results.

I would like to recommend the De Buyer stainless steel baking tray with the De Buyer baking mat for these garlic and parsley potatoes. The heavy steel tray gets properly hot in a preheated oven and starts crisping the base of each potato immediately rather than letting them sit in a cool surface and go soft. The baking mat prevents sticking without needing excessive oil, and the slight insulation it provides means the bases do not overbrown before the potatoes have cooked through. Together they give you the even, consistent crispness that makes these roasted potatoes worth making. Now get baking!