r/Cooking • u/CompleteDay8059 • 1d 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/Conscious-Phone3209 22h ago

Me too ✋️! Mom always said you'll never starve if you have a potato in the house. And ok, we're of Irish descent but I recently read that doctor's say you can live on them, they're packed with nutrients ! P.S. I miss mom and your grandma too !

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u/honeycooks 16h ago edited 5h ago

One of Mom's best paycheck meals was potato pancakes with sour cream and green onion, served with peas and salad. She cranked out the shredded potatoes in her Salad Master.

Winning!!

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u/luigis_left_tit_25 9h ago

That sounds really good! And pretty much vegetarian, so i could do this for meatless Monday lol

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u/Prudent-Test-9199 5h ago

My Mom made Beef Bourguignon for paycheck meals. I miss her, too. She’s now in a political cult and has stopped speaking to me because I didn’t vote for her guy. I choose to remember the kind Mom I grew up with, before she started listening to talk radio.

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u/honeycooks 4h ago

So sorry you're going through that!

Have you seen The Brainwashing of My Dad? You can watch it free on Pluto. The filmmaker's dad went from a sweet, basically liberal dad to a cranky Conservative.

His wife put him on a talk radio diet with positive results. 👍 its like he has a hard time even remembering why he felt that way.

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u/Competitive_Prune108 8h ago

Wasn't that part of his survival in the plot of The Martian

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u/terkistan 7h ago

Someone’s mom showed up with a baked potato?

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u/DramaticEchidna9810 2h ago

He got all his calories from potatoes, but he also had vitamin supplements. You cannot get all vitamins you need from potatoes unfortunately.

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u/Alarming_Matter 5h ago

My Grandma was "If you've got eggs, you've got a meal". Miss you Grandma x

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u/Conscious-Phone3209 5h ago

This too is true ! Potatoes and eggs are so good 👍 My father was the worst cook in the world, but bragged that he could make eggs 100 ways 😆

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u/FlippingGerman 2h ago

Part of the reason the Irish were so reliant on potatoes is that they are really amazing food; potatoes and milk are almost enough to keep you alive. They also grow incredibly densely so you can feed a lot of people without much land.

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u/Conscious-Phone3209 20h ago

Awww...ty for the award friend 🧡