Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson hailed new Peruvian variety Mayan Gold as his favourite potato of the moment, while demonstrating how to make them into perfect roast potatoes at the British Potato 2007 event in Harrogate.

“They make perfect roast potatoes and also fantastic chips. It is a wonderful potato.”

The potato, a new species which has bright golden flesh, has been snapped up by Britain’s top restaurants, including Antony Worrall Thompson’s. “It’s my favourite potato – we use around 2t a week in my restaurant.”

Perfect roast potatoes looked a little beaten up, a bit rustic, he said. “The trick is to have a good potato, like Mayan Gold, and cook it until it is just beaten up.”

The potatoes are then roasted in deep goose fat for around 40 minutes, drained of the fat, before being roasted for a further 20 minutes, he explained.

“They should be crunchy on the outside and really fluffy on the inside,” he said.

The chef also demonstrated various other potato dishes, including three types of mash with another Greenvale AP variety, Vales Sovereign, which he described as a great all-rounder on the firm’s stand.