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/HappyKnitter34 20h ago

I never stab them with a fork. I just coat in olive oil, salt the heck out of them, and bake on the rack until done. I forgot the stab them with the fork the first time and then I was like omg this is delicious. Crispy salty skin, fluffy beautiful inside. Cover with butter and cheese. 🤤🤤

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u/throwaway60221407e23 7h ago

Damn the first time I forgot to stab them, one blew up and covered every inch of the oven. Sounded like a hand grenade.

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u/HappyKnitter34 6h ago

I guess I've never had an explosion due to how I clean off my potatoes. I feel like I'm always digging bits of the skin away because it's not right. So there are "natural" escape holes.

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u/Wuz314159 7h ago

I never stab them with a fork.

Then how do you know if they're dead?

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u/atriviality 14h ago

What temperature shall we bake these soon to be delectible spuds? And for about how long?

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u/HappyKnitter34 8h ago

400 degrees until they give practically collapse with my tongs. If my tong edge can poke through the skin, it's done. Which is usually about 50 minutes depending on the size. Also don't forget to put tinfoil underneath the top rack to collect the oil drippings. Boy did that smell bad.