Look anywhere at this time of year, and you’ll soon see that goose fat is the holy grail for crispy roast potatoes. But as with most seasonal produce during Xmas, it can often be tricky to find.
But don’t despair – it doesn’t mean you need to give up dishing up roasties at the dinner table! You can still deliver top notch crispy roast potatoes without fail using these 5 goose fat alternatives.
Simply swap out goose fat for the same amount of any of the below for award-winning trimmings!
1. Duck fat
In terms of composition, duck fat is near identical to goose fat, making it the best substitute for goose fat when roasting potatoes. As with goose fat, duck fat imparts a lovely meaty flavour that is nice and light. Duck fat also adds that signature caramelised outer layer around your roastie – a must-have.
2. Chicken fat
Chicken fat is a fantastic alternative to goose fat that could save you some valuable pennies. Simply cook a chicken and store the rendered fat from the roast for use on your roasties. It is light and flavourful, just like goose fat.
3. Ghee
While butter is not a good substitute for goose fat (the burning point on butter is quite low), ghee, however, is a happy medium between non-animal fat and the taste of butter. That’s because ghee is simply heated butter (sometimes called ‘clarified butter’) which separates the milk and liquid – and this helps to ramp up the burning point.
4. Olive oil
While animal fats are typically the best alternatives to goose fat when cooking crispy roasties, if you have to choose an oil, olive oil is your best bet.
Neutral oils, like rapeseed or vegetable oil, impart very little flavour and can leave potatoes more greasy than crunchy if not roughed up prior to baking. Olive oil, on the other hand, has a pleasant unique flavour that doesn’t soak as deeply into the roast potato when baking. Just don’t make the mistake of using extra virgin olive oil as the smoke point is very low and will simply soak into your potatoes, earning you soggy roasties!
In any case, when cooking roast potatoes with oil, make sure the oil remains as clean as possible to avoid any unsightly residual brown marks.
5. Coconut oil
Coconut oil has a high smoke point which makes them a solid choice when baking roast potatoes. However, the coconut smell does linger and can create quite a lot of smoke in your oven. Nevertheless, you do still get a good quality crispy roast potato when using coconut oil.
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