The humble baked potato

My today's jacket potatoes and a cream made with melted black garlic along with anchovy fillets,butter, evoo and chilli peppers

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Yorky said:
These were somewhat larger so I gave them 9 minutes in the microwave (3 x 3). The plate is 280 mm diameter.
Then about 25 minutes in the halogen at 180 degC.
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Cut in half and the "innards" removed.

Scoop out the potato.

Scoop out the potato.


Mashed with cheese (Wensleydale), raw onion, garlic, tomato puree, a little milk and butter.

Mash with cheese, etc.

Mash with cheese, etc.


The mixture returned to the skins and sprinkled with a little oregano.

Stuff.

Stuff.

 
I must be the only person who just bungs them in the bottom of the oven to cook at whatever temperature the oven is being used at for something else . They just sit there and cook . I don't do anything to them except stab them a few times so that they don't explode .

They get served with oil or (vegan cheese), sometimes baked beans but more often than not hummus. It works really well with jacket spuds.

As a side note, I had to giggle and scratch my head whilst I was in hospital when I was served a "jacket potato" as it was referred to without its skin. I tried explaining that that was only a baked potato, a potato needed to actually have its jacket on to be called a jacket potato!

And all through my childhood jacket potatoes and mashed or boiled/steamed potatoes featured constantly . I lived off them, mostly jacket potatoes. My favourite was to scrap out the innards, mash them with lots of butter and eat the mash on the plate ,using the skin to mop up any unused butter (more added if needed) . The skin was the best bit as far as I was concerned.

The freezer, even today, has cooked jacket potatoes in there waiting for comfort food to be needed. (they get reheated in the microwave for ease and as a teenager a mature cheddar cheese would go over the tatty and be nuked until the edges are just starting to burn . That point where it's brown, crisping off and the oil running out. The cheese just to the side of that was my favourite and usually that meant mashing it back into the spud for a mashed potato and melted cheese wonder. The jackets again being used to no up the excess oil . It was also excellent with Lancashire, Cheshire or Wensleydale cheeses. Sadly no longer an option . :cry:
Jacket spuds have never been the same since .
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I must be the only person who just bungs them in the bottom of the oven to cook at whatever temperature the oven is being used at for something else . They just sit there and cook . I don't do anything to them except stab them a few times so that they don't explode .

They get served with oil or (vegan cheese), sometimes baked beans but more often than not hummus. It works really well with jacket spuds.

As a side note, I had to giggle and scratch my head whilst I was in hospital when I was served a "jacket potato" as it was referred to without its skin. I tried explaining that that was only a baked potato, a potato needed to actually have its jacket on to be called a jacket potato!

And all through my childhood jacket potatoes and mashed or boiled/steamed potatoes featured constantly . I lived off them, mostly jacket potatoes. My favourite was to scrap out the innards, mash them with lots of butter and eat the mash on the plate ,using the skin to mop up any unused butter (more added if needed) . The skin was the best bit as far as I was concerned.

The freezer, even today, has cooked jacket potatoes in there waiting for comfort food to be needed. (they get reheated in the microwave for ease and as a teenager a mature cheddar cheese would go over the tatty and be nuked until the edges are just starting to burn . That point where it's brown, crisping off and the oil running out. The cheese just to the side of that was my favourite and usually that meant mashing it back into the spud for a mashed potato and melted cheese wonder. The jackets again being used to no up the excess oil . It was also excellent with Lancashire, Cheshire or Wensleydale cheeses. Sadly no longer an option . :cry:
Jacket spuds have never been the same since .
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I too remember mum cooking spuds in foil in the embers of our fire. Christchurch now has tight laws on fires. Mine was taken out and walled up when building upstairs. I'm never going to have them again.

Russ
 
I like the twice-baked potatoes best. They're also supposed to be healthier theoretically (okay this is before whatever they get topped with).
As for as a regular baked potato, out at restaurants or visiting other people they're always the Russet, at least around here. I simply don't care for Russets that way. I do them at home using the creamier, tastier Yukon (or other) Gold. To which I only need a little salt and butter although I won't turn down a dab of sour cream. (Russets need to be clobbered with whatever I can find!)

I will rub a touch of oil on the skin of my Yukons before I bake them (in the oven proper). The other way I'll make them is to wrap them in foil and throw them on the grill with whatever else is cooking, putting fork holes in them and in the foil - so some of the charcoal flavor can get in there too...)

But my favorite potato making method is to mash them - again preferentially Yukons. I'll simmer those in water for about 40 minutes after quartering them, along with an onion. (Alternatively, I've roasted them in the oven with a little oil and rosemary.) Then I'll coarsely mash with a potato masher, adding butter, salt and pepper, and optional cheese. Possibly parsley or tarragon or whatever green flakey herb I'm in the mood for. AND a pinch of nutmeg. I leave the skins on, and I keep things chunky.
 
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I recently watched a video of a breakfast-like baked potato. The potatoes are baked, hollowed out and filled with beaten eggs. Then baked until eggs are set. Clever. Looked pretty good.
 
rascal said:
I too remember mum cooking spuds in foil in the embers of our fire. Christchurch now has tight laws on fires. Mine was taken out and walled up when building upstairs. I'm never going to have them again.

Russ
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Fire laws are very strict here s well. But open fires in homes and slow combustion stoves are the norm in rural and outback homes. They're surprisingly common in houses in cities as well. But open fires needing permits during the fire season (bush fire that is ) exclude fires within the home and within 20m of the house . Our last rental place had a wood fired pizza oven and we wanted to use that during the fire season. We let them know out of politeness because we were so rural ,but because it was within 20m of the house (just and only just ) we didn't actually need a permit as it turned out. The house fire , a slow combustion store as they are called here (in the UK its a wood burning stove ,but then in the UK we mainly burn a mixture of coal and wood until the fire is lit then it's over to coal. In Australia despite having some of the best coal in the world (is cleaner and more efficient than most coal ) it's not legal to sell coal to anything other than dedicated commercial enterprises ).

Anyhow open fires and stoves in the home are still exceptionally common, but then in the summer we don't have aircon either. Hard when it's +40°C outside!
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Fire laws are very strict here s well. But open fires in homes and slow combustion stoves are the norm in rural and outback homes. They're surprisingly common in houses in cities as well. But open fires needing permits during the fire season (bush fire that is ) exclude fires within the home and within 20m of the house . Our last rental place had a wood fired pizza oven and we wanted to use that during the fire season. We let them know out of politeness because we were so rural ,but because it was within 20m of the house (just and only just ) we didn't actually need a permit as it turned out. The house fire , a slow combustion store as they are called here (in the UK its a wood burning stove ,but then in the UK we mainly burn a mixture of coal and wood until the fire is lit then it's over to coal. In Australia despite having some of the best coal in the world (is cleaner and more efficient than most coal ) it's not legal to sell coal to anything other than dedicated commercial enterprises ).

Anyhow open fires and stoves in the home are still exceptionally common, but then in the summer we don't have aircon either. Hard when it's +40°C outside!
Click to expand...

We have air con downstairs, but nothing upstairs. I must remedy that before summer.

Russ
 
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