“It’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love.” – Irish Proverb
As soon as I posted this recipe I received several calls from from friends asking why I would advise people about how to do something as simple as baking a potato. Well, my response is that our parents taught us wrong! You DO NOT wrap a potato in aluminum foil to bake it! Please, please, please follow this recipe and bake a potato correctly.
Correctly baking a potato so that it is evening cooked, tasty with soft & fluffy texture is not hard to do but, it seems so many people and restaurants aren’t able to achieve the proper results. If you follow these simple instructions, you won’t encounter the wrong outcome … I promise!
Always use russet potatoes for baking. I prefer the larger ones that weigh about a pound each because they easily, when stuffed, provide for an entire individual meal and often there’s some left for tomorrow’s lunch. Contrary to what your mom taught you, never wrap a potato in foil because it results in a dense, gluey flesh. Many restaurants wrap their potatoes in foil so they can stay warm in a warming drawer all day and that’s why they taste so bad when served on your plate.
Preheat oven to 425-degrees F. Assemble ingredients and equipment
Using your hands, scrub the potatoes under running water removing any dirt. Trim away any blemishes with a vegetable peeler
Jab the potatoes all over with a fork about eight times. This will allow steam to escape and keeps the potato from bursting open while cooking
Rub the potatoes with softened butter covering them with a thin coating
Lightly sprinkle salt all over each potato
Place the potatoes a few inches apart on a foil-lined baking sheet. Place the baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven and bake for about an hour. After 50 minutes, check the potatoes for doneness by piercing them with a fork every so often. They are done when the skins are dry and the insides feel completely soft when pierced.
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