Flavour problem with roast potatoes with rosemary/garlic

fuzzby100

Every time I make roast potatoes with rosemary and garlic, the flavour from them is no where near what you get in a decent Italian. They taste like normal roast potatoes. I always parboil the potatoes for approx 5mins, dry and allow to cool slightly and toss with either dried or fresh rosemary (it does'nt make any difference)/olive oil and a few cloves of garlic. I always add salt after cooking. I roast at 200deg c (fan) for approx 25 mins and mix once during cooking. Perhaps I need to be adding a bit of MSG!! Any suggestions would be appreciated.

rojito

Not sure if this will help, but I normally melt some butter in a small pan on the lowest possible heat and mix the rosemary and smashed garlic through that for a few minutes in order to suck out the flavour. I don't let it get anywhere near to frying point.
I toss the potatoes through that before roasting.
The butter obviously evaporates on roasting but the flavours seem to stick. I made this up through trial and error but it seems to work for me.

Miaireland

I agree with the above poster. I use gee/butter for flavour and also use fresh rosemary and bruise it a bit and smash the garlic. Seems to have a better flavour.

fuzzby100

Many thanks Rojito and Miaireland for your suggestions I will definitely try them out

Thud

I would add the garlic just before they finish roasting if you want more garlic flavor otherwise it will dry out and flavor and texture will change