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Pretty much everyone parboils potatoes before roasting them in the oven. (About 10 minutes in lightly salted water. After boiling them and draining the cooking water, put the lid back on the pan briefly and give it a good shake to roughen the surface of the potatoes. You'll get better crunchy outsides that way.)

Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick?

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> Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick?

Just one deviation: steam-dry step instead of putting the lid back on. The potatoes are poured out to a colander and left there for a few minutes.

Yes, and tossing them around gently in the colander is the ideal way to roughen the surface. This is also Raymond Blanc's method. If the water can be kept vigorously boiling, it's usually only necessary to parboil the potatoes for a few minutes: just enough to soften the outer 5mm or so.

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