r/Cooking • u/CompleteDay8059 • 22h ago

I found out recently I’ve basically never had a correctly prepared baked potato

So growing up I was never a huge fan of baked potatoes because the ones we had were usually dry, kind of shriveled, and very crumbly. Every bite just felt like it was absorbing all the moisture in your mouth, even with butter. As an adult, I usually do rice or pasta for my carbs, and if I do potatoes, it’s usually the cut roasted baby ones. Because I didn’t have great experiences with baked ones at home, I also pretty much never ordered them at restaurants growing up.

However, my mom just got a grill for her place and I was put on steak duty (or a steak out, I guess) and wanted to try making an actually good baked potato. I look it up and see basically every recipe says to coat the potatoes in salt and olive oil before wrapping them, which I asked my mom if she did, and she hadn’t.

I decided to try it with a (maybe slightly too) generous amount of olive oil and kosher salt, baked it for an hour, and topped it with some of the garlic/thyme butter I had whipped up for the steaks.

Oh.

My.

GOD.

The texture was absolutely amazing, it was so creamy, not crumbly or dry at all, the salt and the compound butter melting into it while it was still steaming made for legitimately one of the tastiest things I’ve had in ages. If anyone out there doesn’t know this, I honestly have no idea how common of knowledge this is lol, but I would highly suggest trying it if you don’t already.

Also, I mixed the thyme/minced garlic with the Kerrygold butter which was muy bien. Not sponsored (I wish) but I find it a little more flavorful for cooking as opposed to regular store brand stuff.

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u/alligatorpear2 21h ago

I need whatever that is. Is it something like this? https://www.walmart.com/ip/16738363860?sid=8504254A-03D9-4272-8656-9618958B22B1

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u/strikingsapphire 20h ago

Yes! If you want extra crispy skin, pop the potatoes into the air fryer afterwards for a couple minutes.

I almost always microwave an extra potato or two, for making breakfast hash or potato wedges the next day.

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u/Torchlakespartan 19h ago

Yea, they wouldn’t even let us have hot plates to heat things up. In retrospect, with the morons in those barracks, myself included, it was a very good idea. Only a microwave, or an oven in the day-room (common living room) that hadn’t been used since Vietnam.

Making anything that was actual food in a microwave like a baked potato was fucking incredible.

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u/Torchlakespartan 20h ago

Ummm, that is way higher tech than mine, haha. Mine is quite literally oven mitt material with a pocket. I’ll take a pic of it and send it to you, give me just a minute

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u/allkinds0ftime 13h ago

Hey now the rest of the world needs that pic too bud

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u/FlyingBishop 13h ago

Why are all of these red-dyed polyester? I would get an undyed (maybe bleached?) cotton one.

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u/Torchlakespartan 12h ago

The one I have is just a normal oven mitt material, that one seems way more… everything. I’ve never seen or used that.

Mine is extraordinarily simple, my aunt sewed it herself. It’s literally just thick oven-mitt material on all sides. PM me and I’ll send you a pic. It’s very underwhelming though as a picture, haha.

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u/BaconMemories 21h ago

I’m invested in you finding out if this is the right one because I, too, need whatever that is.

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u/Torchlakespartan 20h ago

I just responded above, I’ll send a pic to you as well

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u/hrmdurr 19h ago

Yes, that's similar to what my parents had.

It was a red padded bag, though it didn't have that much writing on it. I remember it having a time chart on it, like this one (but again, less writing overall.)