How To Make Baked Potatoes

As delicious as Thanksgiving turkey can be, you can’t serve it on its own – you need some delicious accompaniments.

Many of us spend so much time and energy on the turkey, we forget about the rest of the meal.

Baked potatoes are a favorite with everyone, but most of us don’t know how to get them perfect….you know, salty and crispy skin with a pure white and fluffy inside.

We’ve decided to give you a fool proof method!

Watch our professional chef make the perfect ‘steak house style’ baked potatoes…….

Preparation time: 15mins

Cooking time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 15mins

Servings: 2

Ingredients:

• 2 large potatoes
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 4 tablespoons of sour cream
• 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese
• 1 spring onion stem
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 425°

2. Start by washing your potatoes and then patting dry with paper towels. Next, use a paper towel to rub vegetable oil all over the surface of the potatoes.

Most people don’t rub potatoes with oil before baking, which is what causes potatoes to loose water through the cooking process. This leads to tough, ‘chunky’ potato flesh.

By covering the surface with oil, you stop the potato from losing water, which is what creates that gorgeous white, fluffy interior.

You can use sunflower, safflower, corn or any oil that does not have a heavy flavor. Stay away from ‘aromatic’ oils such as nut oils, peanut oil, olive oil, sesame oil etc.

3. Sprinkle over the salt. The salt should stick to the potatoes because of the oily surface. This will help you get that salty, crispy exterior that everyone loves.

There is no need to prick the potatoes with a fork. This bit of advice came from the fact that potatoes can explode when being microwaved. As you are using an oven, there is no need to prick the potatoes. In fact, by doing so, you are allowing moisture to leach out of the potato, which could cause the flesh to become tough.

Also, do not wrap the potatoes with foil. This is another bit of well-meaning advice that needs to be ignored, in this case.

Wrapping in foil meant that you could decrease cooking times as the foil conducts heat to the potatoes. The potatoes will also stay warm for longer after cooking. However, wrapping in foil creates soft, steamed potato skin, NOT what you want!

4. Place into the hot oven and cook for up to 1 hour. One of the most difficult tasks is working out when a baked potato is done, and many of us either stop cooking too early (and we’re left with tough potato flesh) or we overcook until the potato is burnt.

Instead, use this neat little hack. Stick a cooking thermometer into the middle of one of the potatoes and make sure it registers to 210°F.

We recommend you use the Chef Remi Cooking Thermometer as it has been designed to give you instant accurate temperature readings.

It has a ‘freeze' temperature button, which allows you to 'freeze' the temperature while the probe is inside the potato. This is because, as soon as you remove the probe, the temperature it registers will drop as it reacts with the cool air.

Without this freeze function, you may assume your potato is cooler than it actually is, and you end up cooking for far too long and ruining your baked potatoes.

5. While the potatoes are cooking, grate your cheddar cheese using a cheese grater.

We recommend using the Chef Remi Cheese Grater as bits of cheese can go everywhere when grating. Our cheese grater allows you to grate foods directly into the snap on container - no mess, no fuss!

6. Once the potatoes are cooked, take them out of the oven, and use kitchen tongs to place them onto a platter, and allow to cool for a few minutes.

We recommend using the Chef Remi 2pc Kitchen Tong Set as these tongs are made from super strong, thick stainless steel, with heavy-duty food-grade silicone tips that are heat resistant up to 600°F.

7. Cut a long slit lengthwise across each potato using a paring knife, and then use your fingers to push the ends of each potato to open up the slit (cover fingers with towels as the potatoes will be very hot – don’t burn yourself!)

We recommend using the Chef Remi Paring Knife as the small and nimble 4” blade, made from razor sharp stainless steel, will cut through baked potatoes without accidentally slicing the baked potatoes in half.

8. Spoon 2 tablespoons of sour cream into the slit of each potato, and then sprinkle over your grated cheddar cheese.

9. Snip the spring onion stem directly over your baked potatoes using kitchen shears.

We recommend you use the Chef Remi Award Winning Kitchen Shears as you can cut herbs, vegetables and meat directly onto food, or into a pan or skillet – no need to get out a knife and cutting board. 

10. Sprinkle over some salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Happy Thanksgiving!