MasterChef Australia star Khanh Ong shares his recipe for perfect Christmas roast potatoes - with a twist

Khanh Ong has shared how to make his perfect Christmas roast potatoes with a twist. 

The former MasterChef Australia star tells Adelaide Now that his favourite holiday version of the dish is his signature salt and vinegar potatoes. 

To make them, the cookbook author says he par boils his spuds in a pot of half water and half vinegar. 

The potatoes are simmered for 15-20 minutes, until a knife goes in with little resistance. 

They are then transferred to a baking dish and pressed down with a knife to 'squash' them. 

Add oil or fat, as well as thyme, and cook for 50-65 minutes at 200 degrees, turning them 20 minutes in. 

Once they are done, you'll have perfectly crispy salt and vinegar flavoured roast spuds ready for your festive dinner.   

As a bonus tip, the cook says he prefers to keep the potatoes whole instead of cutting them up. 

However he suggests picking similar sized spuds to ensure they all cook at the same rate. 

Another former MasterChef star, Matt Preston, also recently revealed how to craft the perfect roast potato.

He lifted the lid on his best hacks for roasting the crispiest Christmas spuds, and one in particular is not for the faint of heart.

Speaking to Taste, Matt revealed that the first step toward potato perfection lay in the prep.

Matt said that it is important to cut the potatoes lager than you intend as they will lose water, and thus shrink, as they roast.

He revealed that the nest step was to parboil the spuds 'so they just slip off the knife when you pierce them', before letting them steam for as long as possible to evaporate excess moisture.

'Put them back in the hot pan with the lid and shake,' he said. 'You’ll get more of the steam to come off. Because the drier the potato, the crispier they are.' 

The next step is roasting and Matt admits that his hack for crispy potatoes is 'really dangerous and really hard,' but worth it.

He said that you will need a high-sided pan a LOT of hot oil and nerves of steel.

'Get a high-sided oven tray and pour a generous amount of oil in and get that oil really hot in the oven, and then do not take that hot tray of oil out of the oven,' Matt said. 

He added that the risky procedure was best approached as a two-person job and one that should not be attempted by kitchen novices.

'Make sure you're with one other person,' he said.

'One of you opens the oven and pulls the tray out a little bit, and the other one carefully puts the potatoes [one-by-one] into the hot oil and then shuts the oven door.'

Matt added that while risky, in this case the ends justify the carb-laden means.

'It’s really dangerous but oh my goodness,' he exclaimed.