best potato for making a baked potato? (traditional whole baked)

[coppercone2]

What is the best baked potato?

I had 'yellow potatoes' available. I believe it might be a yukon gold or similar

I tried this martha stewart recpie

https://www.thekitchn.com/martha-stewart-baked-yukon-gold-potato-23103119

They were in the oven for a while longer then the 1.5 hours, but yeah it came out pretty delicious when you put a slice of butter, spring onion, bacon, cream, salt, pepper on it.


the russet is supposedly the best, but I am impressed by this simple tuber.


I did not put holes in mine. If you look at the comments you see what can happen when you put holes in it.

And yes, you just use the rack, no trays or nothing. it works

[SeanB]

I prefer to use sweet potato though, like the taste better, and use the red or yellow ones, as i find they taste the same, just that the spice mix is important. Sometimes just a bit of cinnamon on the opened potato, other times a nice helping of biltong mix, which is basically coriander, salt and acetic acid, normally used to cure meat, but which is a great spice on it's own.

For those who want to look...

https://www.crownnational.co.za/_downloads/catalogue-safari.pdf

[coppercone2]

spice you mean marinade or is there some way that you crystalize the acid

[SeanB]

Dry mix, which is applied as a garnish. The acid is a crystal in the blend, like the salt is, and it does come with an anti caking agent added, which helps slightly in humid weather.

[TimNJ]

The real life hack is making microwaved "baked" potatoes.  Like 7-8 minutes or so? Way faster than with an oven. If you want a crisped up skin, you can try microwaving partially first, then finish it off in the oven. Will still be far faster. I usually poke a few holes before I throw it in the microwave, but not convinced it makes a difference one way or another. Especially good with sweet potatoes.

[Stray Electron]

I prefer to use sweet potato though, like the taste better, and use the red or yellow ones, as i find they taste the same, just that the spice mix is important. Sometimes just a bit of cinnamon on the opened potato, other times a nice helping of biltong mix, which is basically coriander, salt and acetic acid, normally used to cure meat, but which is a great spice on it's own.

For those who want to look...

https://www.crownnational.co.za/_downloads/catalogue-safari.pdf

   I prefer good sweet potatoes too but the raw ones sold in most grocery stores in the US are pretty tasteless. A few restaurants in the US like Sonny's BBQ and Outback usually have good tasting ones.  I've asked and they showed me the label from theirs and they are a different variety and from a different source than those sold in the grocery stores.  Most of the ones in the stores are pale yellowish orange inside but the restaurants ones are a deep orange color.  The best grocery stores ones that I have found in the US are at the Walmart grocery stores but they're still not as good as the restaurant sweet potatoes.

[Wallace Gasiewicz]

I'm with Coppercone. Yukon Gold. Now called just "Gold"Perhaps because they are not grown in the Yukon?  HA!!!

[DavidAlfa]

I was going to say the microwave oven trick, but TimNJ got it first. It's a real time saver!
Just wash them, put in a bowl with a finger-thick layer of water (To prevent the potato from loosing too much water), cover and radiate full-power for 7 minutes or so

[twospoons]

Around here we use 'Agria', which is also a yellow fleshed variety. So good you don't really need butter.  Also great cut into wedges (skin on), sprinkled with olive oil and salt, and oven baked. 

[coppercone2]

the expensive import (or domestic if you are from england) cheddar cheese that is actually crumbly is an excellent choice for the baked potato. It fails miserably on nachos and is IMO too salty, at least for typically cheese flooded american nachos

However in a baked potato if you want to maintain the texture of a well baked potato but also mash in a cheese it is a clear winner.

if you put butter, sour cream and normal cheddar it seems too wet, even if used sparingly. However this more flavorful dryer cheese is more potent in smaller amounts and IMO it feels less greasy in the potato. A teaspoon of sour cream, a half tea spoon of butter and a table spoon of grated english cheddar still results in a fairly textured potato. Also hang off on the regular quantity of salt for a potato if you use the english cheddar. I enjoy the dry texture of the potato that is well baked. It goes good with chives not so much green onions which are wet for this more dry dish

This is the type of cheese that behaves kind of like a dry feta block even though its cheddar. With the more potent cheese I basically did not miss the bacon.

[BrianHG]

Only free range potatoes make the best baked potatoes as demonstrated in this video:

[coppercone2]

how do you restore the taste of a baked potato after a day in the fridge?

I feel that when reheated it develops a slightly bitter taste. Is there any specific tricks like a certain temperature to make it taste better? And to make it more fluffy?


You c an fry it of course, but is there any other solutions? When day+ old baked potato is fried it makes excellent fries BTW. I think they lose a bit more moisture and something happens to them that makes it crisp/brown super fast into excellent fry disks.

[coppercone2]

tried a russet potato, 1 hour 400F (martha stewart). Excellent


The skin on that one is kinda crispy and almost bitter and its good. If you have some kinda stomach issues and you still wanna eat potatoes I recommend the yellow potato because the skin is hardly there. The russet potato is pretty well armored after baking.

Not sure if I always wanna eat that tough skin of the russet potato, so the yellow potato maintains its place. I.e. if you have a grilled meat or something not sure if you need the tough russet skin to go with that one. Not sure I agree its the optimum steak potato.

But for stand alone potato I think the russet is better, as a meal, not a component of one. I would avoid the crispy toppings with the russet potato, there is no need for bacon, fried onions, etc... when the skin is that crispy. The yellow baked potato I can see as a side dish but the russet really IMO also demands some cream too, again because the skin is tough. Not sure I would go beyond leafy greens as a side for a russet baked potato.