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Medium-Effort Potatoes

Potatoes (if you're buying for this: prefer small & firm ones)
Bicarbonate or baking soda
Sea salt or kosher salt (boring salt will do in a pinch)
Coarse salt
Olive oil (other, inferior oils will do in a pinch)
Rosemary
Other spices you like, but less is more here

A pot
A pestle or some improvised blunt object
Skillet route: a skillet
Oven route: a tray

This recipe has 2 parts: make them soft, and make them crunchy.

1. Make them soft

Prepare a pot with enough water to cover your potatoes. Dissolve enough salt in it for saturation. Add bicarbonate (the alkalinity breaks the pectin and helps with browining) (source: the Internet). Bring to a boil.

While the water boils, prepare the potatoes. If they're big cut them in half. If they're irregular-sized, cut only the big ones; try to make them roughly the same size (so you can boil and roast to the same point), but don't stress too much abt that. With a paring knife (any small, pointy knife), dig out eventual black spots and icky stuff, and rinse everything well in water. Don't friggen peel them, peels are food are you what made of money??

Once all potatoes are prepared, add them to the pot together, and set a timer for 10min. After it rings, stick one with a fork; you want them pierceable but not mushy. If they're still too raw, leave a couple minutes more.

Once ready, turn off the fire, drain the water and put the pot back on the (turned off but still warm) plate. Lightly mash the potatoes with your pestle and let them rest for three minutes (to allow some of the steam to dry).

2. Make them crunchy

You can do this with a skillet, or an oven. The skillet is best if you're alone or with up to 1 girlfriend; it's faster and easier, but limited by how many potatoes fit in your skillet (don't pile them atop one another!). The oven is best if you have 2 or more girlfriends around, to do large quantities in a single batch.

~Skillet route~

Warm the skillet first on high fire, til it's good and hot. Add olive oil and some rosemary if it's dried, along with any other flavourings that can handle a long time frying. Add the potatoes and sprinkle coarse salt. Stir them often until all sides are as brown as it gets and the small droppings are starting to go burnt. At the end add more rosemary (dried or fresh) and any sensitive herbs.

For more discussion on how to stir-fry things just right, check out:

Generically Anything Stir-fry Recipe

~Oven route~

While the potatoes are still boiling, start warming the oven to 230°C. After the softening is complete, put the potatoes into a baking tray (large enough that none of them pile atop one another!), spread the olive oil atop, sprinkle coarse salt and rosemary, and bounce them about til they're all coated. Bring to the oven for 20 min, then flip and let 20 min more. You might need 2 more 10-minute flips if they're not super crispy yet.