Tag Archives: baked potato

Serious, easy comfort food….

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Surely one of the easiest comfort foods must be a baked potato. I don’t mean just any old baked potato. It has to be one that has never had aluminum foil mentioned in the same room with it, rubbed with oil, popped into the oven at about 325°F until the well-scrubbed skin is almost crisp.

Pulled from the oven, x-ed on top and smushed open, given a minute or two for steam to escape, just a tad of butter added–it’s so good!  Probably, in my estimation, the ultimate comfort food–even more than mac ‘n’ cheese.

Want to make it some seriously “gourmet” comfort food?  Add some fleur de sel, or another fine specialty finishing salt. For a great account of salts of the world, you should check out Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral by Mark Bitterman. Just a pinch of a finishing salt adds a very special touch.

Some truffle oil and/or butter, or shaved truffle over the lovely baked potato is awesome.  If you go so far as the truffle butter (or not) a glass of champagne goes well with it and helps induce an aura of comfort in a serious way.

If it’s a meal you want, rather than just comfort food, add some steamed broccoli, and maybe even some cheese–some pepper jack or Havarti will melt easily over the top–just lay thin slices over the hot potato–never mind making cheese sauce here.

Sumptuous but simple.

A son goût!

The Cuban Swet Potato (Boniato))

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Today was a particularly stressful Monday–thanks to disappearing content on my computer-assisted course. But one has to eat, stress or no stress.  My quick lunch today was the Cuban sweet potato (Boniato) that I brought home from the grocery store yesterday.

True to my usual idea about checking out something new, I did some skulking on the web, and decided that the best way to get acquainted with this new vegetable would be to prepare it as simply as possible.  Being rushed and needing uninterrupted computer time to recover from technological boo-boo, I just treated it like a baked potato–washed, oiled, couple light stabs with the tip of a paring knife (so it wouldn’t explode), popped into a 350°F oven for about 40 minutes. (That’s when it was soft enough to smush, well, like a baked potato.)

A little sprinkle of fleur de sel, was all it really needed, but I confess to checking it out with a little unsalted butter, too.  It was not as wet as the usual orange sweet potato though more moist than a russet baking potato.  The flesh was pale yellow, and not as sweet as the orange-fleshed  sweet potatoes, nor was it as dry,  as pale, or quite as sweet as the now-available white sweet potatoes.

I enjoyed it for lunch!  More Cuban sweet potatoes will find their way into my kitchen before too long if they are available.  I really should check things like nutritional information and glycemic index on it too.

Now off to the kitchen to pop some veggies and potato into the Römertopf, and then back to the computer to finish the recovery project!

(Hey, I’m also patting myself on the back that this new veggie came into the house yesterday and I ate it today–did not allow it to loiter in the crisper.)

Comfort food: baked potatoes

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It’s another chilly day here, but at least the rain has stopped and the sun is out off and on now, but the thermometer is still reading only 51 ° F .  Despite the chill, a neighbor and I ventured out to go to the wine tasting at the Wine Authorities.  as well as the usual great wines, there was cheese from the Reliable Cheese Company (with samples).  The Tomme de Savoie was very tempting, but when I saw the raclette, I passed on the Tomme since it’s only for me (and the cat). I got the raclette instead so that I could  make one of my favorite special comfort foods:  baked potato with raclette cheese melted over it.

Just plain baked potatoes are one of my favorite comfort foods!  I don’t mean anything fancy like “twice-baked” potatoes  (love those too)—just a really good baked potato that has seen neither the inside of a microwave oven, nor the inside of a foil package.

Russet (baking potato)

a baking potato

When you select your potato for baking, you want one that is as evenly shaped as possible, in addition to being a good potato in general.  (See potatoes.)

Here are three basic recipes for baked potatoes (adapted from Cook’s Illustrated).  Easy…and worth the time.  Cheaper than eating out too–you’d have to go to a really expensive restaurant to get as good a baked potato as any of these recipes will give you.

Basic oven-baked potato

This method will give you a baked potato with a really great  skin to munch on along with that lovely interior.

  • Preheat oven to 350 ° F
  • Scrub a russet potato thoroughly and dry well.
  • Place potato in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
  • Remove and open immediately (to let steam escape) and serve.

Salt-baked potato

This method can give the potato a flavor boost, especially if you include herbs and/or garlic in the covered dish while the potato is baking.  It will give you the fluffiest inside and a tender but lightly crisped skin on the top.

  • Preheat oven to 450 ° F
  • Scrub a russet potato thoroughly and dry well.
  • In a small baking dish, place a layer of kosher salt about 1/2-inch thick (about 1 cup for this particular dish).
  • Place the potato on the salt, broad side down.
  • Cover with foil or place in a covered baking dish and bake in the middle position of oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes
  • Remove foil, brush the potato with 1 teaspoon olive oil and return to the oven until tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife.
  • Remove, brush off excess salt, open immediately, and serve.

Oven-baked sweet potato

This is for the orange-fleshed, wetter varieties.  If you have a white sweet potato (yum) it has much drier flesh, and I typically treat it as a russet potato.

  •  Scrub thoroughly. Prick lightly with a fork in three places, or multiple times with the tip of a paring knife.
  • Preheat oven to 400 ° F
  • Rub the potato with olive oil and place on a foil-covered pan, on the middle rack of the oven.
  • Bake 40 to 50 minutes until it’s tender when pierced with the tip of a knife.
  • Open immediately, season to taste, and serve.
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Wedge of raclette cheese

Raclette cheese

When you want to be a little extra special with even the most comfy of foods–just add more comfort food.  One of my favorite extra comfy foods is baked potato with cheese; and my all time favorite for baked potato with cheese is baked potato with raclette.  Never mind the butter, sour cream and all that stuff (admittedly wonderful), but in this case it’s totally unnecessary.

Raclette is a semi-hard cow’s milk cheese that is mellow, nutty and earthy.  A dish by that name is typically served with the cheese melted over potatoes (usually

black cat looking at potato

Is it mine?

boiled) and gherkins (pickles made from specially grown small cucumbers). While what I’m having here is not traditional raclette, it is a real treat.  (All cooking and recipes are tested and approved (or not) by Keiko, the cat.)

I made a salt-baked potato and finished it as directed in the recipe, and after opening it, laid slices of raclette over the top, and put it back into the oven to let the cheese melt (not under the broiler).

baked potato topped with raclette cheese

Comfort food for supper

The  main course was just that big baked potato and cheese, with a glass of champagne (no cornichons though)!  I had really intended to have a first course of roasted baby carrots and baby zucchini with vinaigrette dressing….but that was not just BIG potato–it was a HUGE potato, so it was my evening to have just that–I had fruits and veggies for breakfast and lunch anyway.)

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