I like the walk-thru — a few years back Carolyn and I wanted to perfect the baked potato and this guide would have been super helpful. It also likely generates some decent Google AdSense dollars for the owner.
So you want to know the best way to bake a potato? Golden, crispy brown skins and soft, tasty potato-goodness inside? It’s quite simple and easy to do, and if you follow along with me I will show you how to do it every step of the way.
Its a pretty long and well done walk-thru. I’d never heard of the olive oil and salt method and can believe the skin will be delicious; I plan to use some white truffle olive oil. Generally, I clean the potato, pre-heat my oven to 400deg CONVECTION BAKE, punch a few holes with a fork and knock an aluminum nail length-wise into the potato. Convection gets me crispy skin and fluffy perfect potato meat.
Aluminum? Nail? In your food??
Um… no.
If you’re compelled to use a heat pipe, use food grade stainless steel. 304 or (preferably) 316L alloy. Get a length of 3/16″ thin-walled tubing and sharpen the end like a hypodermic needle.
Vastly superior.
Aluminum nail? Seriously?
Seriously. I found them at Sur La Table, but here they are a lot cheaper at Amazon.
Aluminum Potato Nails
They work like a charm. I suggest leaving about 1/2 inch exposed.
I bought some potatoes for dinner tonight. I’m planning to try the truffle olive oil and salt — will report back.
Awesome. I will have to try it!
So I gave the potatoes a wipe down with the white truffle olive oil last night, salted them down with some Baleine “Super Fine” sea salt and gave it a go. The potato skin stays a much deeper brown during a baking and appeared to me to not be baking, this was untrue — as I rotated the potatoes at 30 min and 1hr they were crisping up on the skin and softening inside very well.
The oil evidently creates a layer of insulation that forces the internal temperature of the potato up even higher. It also smells wonderful in the house as the cooking proceeds.
Overall — the potatoes were hotter internally, fluffier and more wonderful. The skin tasted wonderful. I know the method was effective as Carolyn suggested we always make potatoes this way.
A winner!