One thing to keep in mind is that, from what I understand, ovens are very imprecise so you gotta exercise some judgement when using them. For example, even if you set your oven to 400°F, it might only reach 325°F. Especially if you open the oven to check on the food (that lets out a lot of heat).
I’ve also heard that when baking on sheet pans, you can get very different results based on how well seasoned your sheet pan is. That shouldn’t affect this dish though since the intent is for the top to be the crispy part and that happens via convection rather than conduction. But maybe how high or low you place the baking dish in your oven will affect the crispiness.
I’m no chef, but I love to cook, and my thanksgiving meals are planned in spreadsheets with 10 minute increments of what goes where. Plus I currently live full-time in an RV so I’ve gotten used to improvising with nonstandard and less reliable tools. Take or leave my suggestions accordingly.
It’s often a good idea, until and unless you know your oven really well, to put an oven thermometer in the oven on the rack and adjust accordingly. They’re <$10. Try placing it in different spots and figure out how evenly or unevenly your oven heats, and how a pan in one spot affects temperature in another.
Composition and thickness of your pan also matters. Ovens heat from all sides, but it matters whether your food is sitting in glass, steel, thin aluminum, or thick aluminum. Cake mixes try to give different instructions for glass, metal, and dark metal, but it’s going to vary by recipe.
And it matters whether you’re using a convection or conventional oven. The standard advice is shorter times and lower temperatures for convection, but you might still get differences in terms of drying out the top before the bottom and center cook fully with convection. Maybe you have to cover it part of the time, for some recipes.
If you misjudge and want more crispiness, why not briefly broil at the end? Say you’re trying to braise a roast in a pan next to, above, or below the dish of potatoes. Steam from the roast slows the cooking and prevents browning. Then when you take the roast out to rest, you have a couple of minutes to broil before serving.
That’s a good point. I don’t really know what I’m doing, so I’m not able to predict exact variations. I found that this worked relatively consistently no matter how I cooked it, but the version in the recipe above was the best.
I definitely endorse changing the recipe based on how it goes:
If it’s not crispy enough, bake it longer uncovered, or increase the temperature, or move the pan closer to the top of the oven.
If the internal texture is crunchy/uncooked, bake it (covered) longer.
If the internal texture is too mushy, bake it (covered) shorter. You could also make the inside crispier by discarding the liquid released when you salt the potatoes, but you’d also need to adjust the amount of salt to make it taste good, and it would effect how it cooks.
One thing to keep in mind is that, from what I understand, ovens are very imprecise so you gotta exercise some judgement when using them. For example, even if you set your oven to 400°F, it might only reach 325°F. Especially if you open the oven to check on the food (that lets out a lot of heat).
I’ve also heard that when baking on sheet pans, you can get very different results based on how well seasoned your sheet pan is. That shouldn’t affect this dish though since the intent is for the top to be the crispy part and that happens via convection rather than conduction. But maybe how high or low you place the baking dish in your oven will affect the crispiness.
I’m no chef, but I love to cook, and my thanksgiving meals are planned in spreadsheets with 10 minute increments of what goes where. Plus I currently live full-time in an RV so I’ve gotten used to improvising with nonstandard and less reliable tools. Take or leave my suggestions accordingly.
It’s often a good idea, until and unless you know your oven really well, to put an oven thermometer in the oven on the rack and adjust accordingly. They’re <$10. Try placing it in different spots and figure out how evenly or unevenly your oven heats, and how a pan in one spot affects temperature in another.
Composition and thickness of your pan also matters. Ovens heat from all sides, but it matters whether your food is sitting in glass, steel, thin aluminum, or thick aluminum. Cake mixes try to give different instructions for glass, metal, and dark metal, but it’s going to vary by recipe.
And it matters whether you’re using a convection or conventional oven. The standard advice is shorter times and lower temperatures for convection, but you might still get differences in terms of drying out the top before the bottom and center cook fully with convection. Maybe you have to cover it part of the time, for some recipes.
If you misjudge and want more crispiness, why not briefly broil at the end? Say you’re trying to braise a roast in a pan next to, above, or below the dish of potatoes. Steam from the roast slows the cooking and prevents browning. Then when you take the roast out to rest, you have a couple of minutes to broil before serving.
That’s a good point. I don’t really know what I’m doing, so I’m not able to predict exact variations. I found that this worked relatively consistently no matter how I cooked it, but the version in the recipe above was the best.
I definitely endorse changing the recipe based on how it goes:
If it’s not crispy enough, bake it longer uncovered, or increase the temperature, or move the pan closer to the top of the oven.
If the internal texture is crunchy/uncooked, bake it (covered) longer.
If the internal texture is too mushy, bake it (covered) shorter. You could also make the inside crispier by discarding the liquid released when you salt the potatoes, but you’d also need to adjust the amount of salt to make it taste good, and it would effect how it cooks.