Would you like a lump of unsalted, uunflavored starch? No? What if we slice it open and dump in a lot of heavy flavor ingredients and spices? That way you can overwhelm your taste buds in the first few forkfuls, and the remaining unflavored mass will taste even blander by comparison!
Who invented this and what did they have against dicing the potato in appropriately sized chunks to absorb and distribute the flavor?
Seeing a lot of comments about mixing/whipping the toppings. I prefer to cut the tater in half lengthwise and then make cross-hatch cuts in the tater flesh. That way the butter and sour cream gets distributed but the overall texture is retained (not mashed).
Who invented this
The Irish, if I had to guess.
As someone who loves potatoes, I kinda hate this post and I’m surprised it’s not in an Unpopular Opinion comm.
Okay so first of all, the potato has to be baked right. If it’s too tough, it’s ruined. It’s gotta be fluffy and soft inside.
Second, and this part is divisive, I gotta have the outside crispy. I line my aluminium foil with olive oil, sea salt, crushed red pepper, garlic seasoning, and hot sauce. My potato skin marinates in awesome and gets crispy while the inside is soft. Some don’t like it crispy.
Third, some people scoop the potato filling out first, then mix it with the ingredients, and put it back in. That makes more sense. I’m lazy though. I just put room temp butter over it, some pepper, and if I’m feeling fancy, I grate some cheddar over it. My wife slathers hers in sour cream. That’s too much IMO, and gets it cold faster. I like mine hot. If I cooked with a heat gun, I’d use it to melt the cheese. I suppose broiling it is also an option.
I hope that someday you can enjoy a baked potato as I do. If not… I hope you enjoy something else just as much. We don’t have to agree on what food is good. But we should enjoy good food while we’re here.
I’ve only ever had restaurant made baked potatoes. I’m positive no seasoning or salt of any kind was applied to the spud before it was done baking. Yours sound a lot more appealing. And sorry if I triggered your favorite food, that was not the intent.
All good. I just want people to enjoy food. The only food I don’t really enjoy is stuff I’m allergic to. And, admittedly, there’s a lot of stuff I just haven’t tried.
We call it a twice baked potato where I live. If you don’t like baked potatoes you might like twice baked. Usually scooping the inside out like the other commenter said, mixing it with one or more types of dairy (sour cream is my go to), and spices and topping it with cheese and/or Bacon and putting it back in the oven for a bit longer.
That being said, I personally love regular baked potatoes too. It’s funny how humans are all so different.
When I worked in a chain restaurant, we oiled and salted the skins.
And potatos have a lot of nutrition. Not as much as sweet potatoes but they’re a good value.
Same. Every place I worked at least oiled and salted them. Though only one place I felt did it properly and kept the potatoes under dry heat for service. Every other place would just nuke a pre-cooked potato, which just kills any possibility of the skin being edible.
Oh, I never had to deal with precooked, microwaved food! But it’s been a really long time since I worked in a restaurant. I did work somewhere food was cooked, delivered, and kept in heated and cold holding stations until serving.
Never heard of crisping the outside. That sounds divine.
It’s really good and you can have it with minimal prep. Just wash, dry and throw it in an air fryer or convection oven. You don’t even need to poke holes in it.
I like more elaborate potatoes, though, so after that, I tear it up into bite-sized pieces. Then I add diced onions, black pepper and either salt or a seasoning mix that contains it. I put shredded cheddar on top and melt it on in the microwave. I take it out and serve with a thin coating of sour cream. It’s one of my favorite meals. The crispy skin makes a big difference.
Still, there’s no need to do all that. Just the air fryer will get the skin crispy and you could eat it like an apple, if you wanted to.
This is actually nuts to me, that the phenomenological baked potato has fallen so far that crisp skin assignment isn’t ubiquitous. It should be the first several sensory impressions which are evoked by the mind potato. The smell of the baked skin, the sizzling oil on the plate, the big flakes of finishing salt, the crunch of the skin as you cut it… IDK what kind of baked potatoes they are serving kids these days, but if you cannot hear your potato then send it back.
I believe that some of us in the west have done the potato a grave injustice. Turns out that things like seasoning and texture can make or break a dish.
Growing up, I was never a fan of mashed potatoes. They were what I imagined people ate in sci fi distopias–generic nutritional paste. Then as an adult, I offered to help at a family gathering and they put me in charge of mashing the potatoes. I was given a half cup of butter and instructed not to add too much salt. I summoned my inner Gordon Ramsey and mentally said “fuck that” and I added salt, butter, cream cheese, some half-and-half, then more salt and butter until they tasted good. And I mashed those suckers like I was whipping heavy cream. And wouldn’t you know it, everyone liked them, even the ones who “don’t like salt in things” (yes you do, you pathological liars). And now I am responsible for mashing potatoes at family events.
Europe got potatoes from what’s currently mainly Peru.
Yes, and the potatoes we have in Europe are all variations of the same potato specie which came over in 1700’s (I think anyway). In Peru there are different species and hundreds of variations. When a potato variant is lost, in that the last potato of that variant perishes, then that variant is lost forever.
The world could benefit from what Puru has, and help them retain the varieties before they are slowly lost one by one.
I line my aluminium foil with olive oil, sea salt, crushed red pepper, garlic seasoning, and hot sauce. My potato skin marinates in awesome and gets crispy while the inside is soft.
Looks like I’m havin a baked potato today.
I used to microwave a potato for lunch at work. I would just bring in two whole potatoes in my bag in the morning. At lunch I’d simply microwave it until it became a dry and tough little wrinkly ball, and raw dog eat it with no salt or anything
My nickname was mx. potato head 😂 sorry for inflicting this story on any potato lovers
That is definitely a way to ingest nutrients 😁 I’m glad you enjoy it.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com Wait, are people having baked potatoes without crispy skins? The crispy skin is the reason to have a baked potato. I can mix garlic, cheese, and chives into mashed potatoes if I want a soft skin.
A lot of people I know whip the ingredients into the soft potato flesh using the skin as a sort of container to create a sort of delicious more consistent mashed potato with a crispy skin you can also eat around it.
I fucking love baked potatoes
i know what comm we’re in but you are allowed to mix the toppings up with the potato before eating
Wow, you are so very clever. Why didn’t I think of this before. 🙄
We don’t know, why didn’t you?
Are not breaking up the inside and mixing up the taste good bits? Are you just eating the butter and seasonings by the spoonful? That’s not how this works, that’s not how any of this works!
Answered here: https://programming.dev/comment/26717164
TLDR: I am. Still sucks. Probably the restaurant’s fault.
Just mix it up with the soft potato flesh dude. I promise it stretches to deliciousness out.
Paging the Tolkien nerds to tell us if baking was a method mentioned in the books.
They had ovens. Which self respecting hobbit would not have tossed a tater into one at some point?
But baked or roasted???
So there have been some valid comments, but one part no one has mentioned is that the type of potato makes a huge difference. If you use a russet potato it will probably be bland, but golden potatoes have a lot more flavor and make for better baked potatoes. They do tend to be a but smaller though.
Agreed, reds and yukon golds are both amazing for this. I’ll do a single slice down the center, add a bit of butter, and pick the damn thing up and bite into it. So good!!
I think this is a case of Autistic hypo vs. hyper sensitivity - we are all different in how we experience things. Texture is another important factor.
Baked potatoes have a lot of flavour - our family (all neurodivergent) love baked potatoes, but we all like different toppings and presentations. One likes just salt on it, one just baked beans, and so on. I like margarine, salt and pepper, beans and cheese. I find the potato is a nice contrast to the more flavoured ingredients.
Could be. I don’t find them revolting or anything like it, and I’m usually very curious and accepting of different foods. Which puzzles me about them, as I know it’s a choice dish for a huge number of people. From what I gathered it mostly boils down to having had bad luck with the ones I tried plus the dish itself likely not really being my thing.
Yep. A lot of the time with my crew, they can’t exactly tell me why they don’t like something… just “taste” or “texture” most of the time. Sometimes it maps with other things they don’t like, other times you’re left wondering why this thing is different from another, very similar thing that they love. Spiky profile I guess…
Cuz it’s easy. And it tastes good.
And cheap.
I used to steal salt, pepper and butter from restaurants when I could afford to go out and I’d microwave potatoes if I ever had more month than money.
What is stopping you from dicing your baked potatoes into appropriately sized chunks and distributing the flavor? That is how I normally eat a baked potato.
Nothing. But it helps way less than expected. Even if I can get a good ratio of topping to spud on the fork, I still get a lump of unsalted starch next to an oversalted topping in my mouth. By the time the two are mixed, its already turned to mush and the sensory input experience is ruined.
And apparently people are reasonable and season their tubers before baking. But both restaurants I’ve been to, on different continents, didn’t. One of them ostensibly all about baked potatoes, it being basically the only entré on the menu. So I guess I shouldn’t completely rule out the dish, just… I guess ask how they prepared it? Sounds weird.
Also, I’m not too keen on preparing the dish on my plate. Feels like those salads where they just pile lumps of ingredients and you have to mix it yourself, with inadequate tools in too small a bowl.
You may have had terrible potatoes. Homegrown potatoes are anything but bland or tasteless.
They were definitely not homegrown.
I love potatoes but baked potatoes are my least favorite form of them. Twice baked, French fries, hash browns, whipped, etc are all superior.
It’s a simple and calorie-rich food that requires very little preparation and no complex techniques. The fact that you can throw a bunch of stuff on it to actually make it taste good comes as a bit of a luxury add-on.
I like butter, sour cream, cheddar cheese and chives.
most rices dishes are as you describe. All carbs are heavily flavored on the whole.
There is a difference, though. Rice tends to soak up juices and things from what is on them. Potato starches don’t do that unless you obliterate them by whipping them or ruff them up, which baked potatoes don’t typically have happen to them.
One of my favorite meals on rice is lemon bacon chicken. The half and half-based sauce with lemon and bacon flavors readily sticks to rice and makes the rice as good as everything else.
yeah that is one way to do rice but another the rice is specifically kept seperate and either put on top or sometimes you actually eat them seperate. I assume this is so the rice does not absorb it to much.
Yeah rice is too bland to me by itself. It has to go with something, like underneath sweet and sour chicken or mixed with refried beans. Rice is awesome, but it’s a complimentary component when cooked plain and not a main one to me.
That is seasoned rice, I hope? Unseasoned rice without sauce does not sound appetizing.
I mean im not sure how much is put on but its how you get food in typical chinese or japanese fashion. a lot of korean places do this thing with white rice with veggies that is a bit like fried rice.
I guess I’ve only gotten westernized versions. I know sushi rice without the other ingredients is dreadful. I hope that’s not it.
you get that eat the main dish with the rice right? you have a bowl of rice but you have other things and you eat it together. or you have a bowl of rice that is topped with it but not mixed together from the get go. pasta is like this. some mix it all together but some will insist you should have a plate of pasta and then you put the sauce on the top.
OK, you mentioned earlier eating it pure. Rice as a side dish is common all over.
Really, you eat your baked potatoes with no salt or flavoring? I put tons of stuff on mine. My favorite is usually butter, salt, sour cream, and crumbled bacon, but I’ve never eaten a baked potato plain and I’ve eaten a lot of them in my lifetime.
They were mine only in the sense I purchased them. Never attempted to make one myself. I’m just as baffled as you are.
