A FEW years ago, I accidentally made perfect roasted potatoes.

It was our first night in a borrowed cabin in the Berkshires, and all I wanted to do was get dinner on the table before midnight. I couldn’t find a roasting pan, so I tossed the potatoes in a cast-iron skillet with some unpeeled garlic and a lot of olive oil and salt. Then I slipped it into the oven, set at a low temperature (325 degrees) to give myself time to put the baby to bed.

By the time we were ready to eat, the potatoes were soft, but not terribly crisp. So I turned up the oven to 450 degrees to blast them with heat. I was amazed by the results: the skin, golden and crisp, crackled when you bit into it and then dissolved into salty, oily crumbs reminiscent of potato chips. It was one of those memorable, on-vacation meals that are impossible to replicate at home.

Recently, though, I came pretty close, with one major difference. Before roasting, I broke up a cinnamon stick and tossed it into the pan. I had just bought a new bag of cinnamon sticks, and they reminded me of how much I liked the spice in the savory dishes I’d sampled on a vacation in Turkey. With luck, the added flavor would compensate for that ethereal crispness I’d yet to reproduce.

It did. The potatoes were richly nuanced and very fragrant with a delicate sweetness intensified by the roasted garlic.