The Perfect Baked Potato

There’s nothing as wonderful as crawling onto the couch after a day at work you’d rather forget, with the perfect jacket baked potato.

It doesn’t matter your poison – melted cheese, baked beans, sour cream and chopped chives, creamed corn. Whatever. The principal player is the vehicle. The spud.

One day I embarked on a quest to understand the technique behind the perfect baked potato. This quest started online. I read every opinion on baked potatoes I could find. And I realised quickly  that everything I’d been doing was wrong – it was no surprise that my baked potatoes were, well, crap.

The biggest myth about baked potatoes, and by far the biggest downfall, is the use of tin foil. NO! Put that foil back in the drawer and back the hell away. No foil required here, thanks.

What the foil does, is trap the steam, which softens the skin. A truly fantastic jacket potato has a tough, papery, almost chewy outer skin. So ditch the foil from the very beginning.

On the same skin topic, before we start anything else, take a fork and pierce the skin of the potato all over. This will help release the steam and allow a thick outer skin to form.

Then drizzle olive oil over the top and sprinkle some ground rock salt. Use your hands and rub the oil and salt all over the potato.

Finally, put it a VERY hot oven (at least 250 degrees), uncovered on a baking tray. Cooking time will depend on how big the potatoes are, but mine usually take around 30-45 minutes.  I’ve found that if you use this method, you get perfect jacket potatoes every time, no matter what potatoes you’re using. Although if I have a choice, I tend to go for a King Edward.