UBER OVEN-BAKED POTATOES

Baking potatoes is an art...get them just right with these tips...

Perfect baked potato - fluffy interior & crispy golden  skin

You might think a baked potato is just a hot potato but the perfect baked potato is a thing of wonder.  

Beautiful crisp skin surrounding a hot fluffy interior, burnished with butter and - if you like - garnished with a few chopped chives for colour.  Wow!  And you get the benefit of all the health-giving vitamins and minerals lurking just below the skin.

And that doesn't take into account toppings.  Baked beans, tuna mayo with lots of lemon and a bit of finely chopped red onion; prawns in pinky Rose Marie sauce; leftover beef or pork with chopped pickles and/or olives, bathed in French Dressing.  It's not quite a meal but boy, what a snack.

Some baked taters are strangely disappointing.

This recipe is not.  

The key is in baking the potatoes naked; do not wrap them in foil or greaseproof paper or put them on a tray.  Place them directly onto the oven rack (but put a tray underneath to catch drips)!

The large baking potatoes are visually more exciting but 67 has used this method for large ordinary potatoes and it worked just fine.  Though obviously the cooking time is cut.  You'll know they're done when a sharp knife slides through the centre without resistance.

If you haven't time to cook a large potato for an hour, halve it vertically and it'll be done in half an hour. 

Method: 

1. Wash potatoes; cut out any blemishes; dry; roll in olive oil, pepper & salt; prick with a fork in a few places
2. Bake naked (don't wrap in foil!) on the oven rack at 200c/180fan/400f/gas 6 one hour in the centre of an oven (put a baking tray on the oven floor to catch drips)
3. Serve by cutting in half vertically and slathering with butter 
4. OR cut a cross half-way down the top of the whole potato, push up at the corners so the fluffy insides appear; add butter and/or stuff with choice of filling (as below)

Stuffed Baked Potato
(Stock Photo)

Comment:

'I'd eat these for the skin alone but the fluffy interior is like manna from heaven!' Retired writer

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This recipe has been developed by B  Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises and may not be reproduced without the author's written permission.