Starting baked potatoes in the microwave and finishing them in the oven cuts cooking time and still yields crisp skin and fluffy potato flesh. Recipe of sorts below.
WE END THE YEAR WITH A SIMPLE POTATO, and that feels somehow appropriate. Because while you’ll find plenty of recipes here designed to impress, just as often, the focus is getting good food on the table quickly, simply. Such as this baked potato.
We love potatoes in all forms here—mashed, pan roasted wedges, potato salads, in soups and stews… But delicious as it is, the elegantly simple baked potato seldom sees action in our kitchen. It’s usually relegated to being a nice find on an old school restaurant menu (the last one I remember was on our road trip this fall, at the Mill Street Grill in Staunton, Virginia).
The problem is time. Baked potatoes take too long to be weeknight friendly for us. By the time you heat the oven and get them going, you’re well on the plus side of an hour or more. Some recipes call for as much as 90 minutes.
For a while, we embraced the plastic-wrapped microwave “baking” potatoes you’ll find in some supermarkets. The plastic wrap is apparently breathable, allowing some of the steam to escape. They’re nice and fast, and almost baked. But not quite. The flesh isn’t as fluffy, and the skin has zero crispness.
But that gave me an idea. What if you microwaved the potato for a while, then finished it in the oven? In theory, you would end up with a satisfyingly authentic baked potato, in less time. A little research showed that, as with most of my ideas, I was not the first to have it.
So here’s how we’re enjoying baked potatoes these days—on weeknights, no less. From firing up the oven to cutting open piping hot, fluffy potatoes and dressing them with butter or sour cream or whatever, you’re looking at 40 minutes max. Just enough time to cook some fish, chicken breasts or chops, and toss a salad.