Recipe

Crunchy jacket-baked potatoes

I eat potatoes all year round – steamed, mashed, pan-fried, sautéed, roasted – but come winter, all I want is jacket-baked potatoes, but baked just so. Yes, I’m fussy. I recommend cooking more than you need because there are plenty of things you can do with the leftovers… should there be any!

Ingredients

• Floury potatoes • Flaky sea salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). The potatoes must be a floury variety (I use Agria). I give the potatoes a good scrub and prick them all over with a skewer so they don’t explode as they cook. Pour some flaky sea salt onto a paper towel and roll the wet potatoes in the salt.

Put potatoes straight onto an oven rack. I put a baking tray on the bottom of the oven because some salt will flake off and make a mess on the oven floor. To get crusty skins bake potatoes for 1¼ to 1½ hours. The potatoes will be tender after around 50 minutes, but it is the extra cooking which turns the skins into crunchy gorgeousness. There’s one more trick, and this is vital: once you remove potatoes from the oven, transfer them to a wooden board — which will keep them warm — and cut them open immediately with a sharp knife. Don’t dither for even a minute, because it is at this point that it can all go drastically wrong. Once removed from the dry heat of the oven — it keeps the skins crunchy — the potatoes will start steaming on the inside and the skin will soften very quickly. Believe me. What you do with the potatoes at this point is up to you: Slather them with butter; drizzle with golden olive oil; shower with grated cheese; top with an egg, drizzled with garlic or chilli butter; or add a dollop of chilli beans, a spoonful of sour cream and a smattering of chopped coriander. Then there’s bolognese sauce and parmesan. That’s a beauty, and well worth the deviation from its standard pasta base. While jacket-baked potatoes are really useful beds for tasty tidbits — you can go one step further and carefully scoop out the potato pulp, mash it with hot milk and seasonings, or shallot and celery softened in butter, then top with grated cheese and grill until golden. And for a supreme dinner, stuff with softened spring onions, diced tomato, parsley, paprika and smoked fish. Smother with grated cheddar and grill until golden. Another great thing about jacket-baked potatoes is the little time it takes to prepare them, and you can eat the skin — it’s the best part, and nutritious — and as the potatoes are not cooked in water, all their water-soluble Vitamin C is intact.

Shared Kitchen: Real food from scratch by Julie and Ilaria Biuso, photography by Manja Wachsmuth, published by Bateman Books, RRP $39.99, Available now.

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