It’s time the potato shook off the ‘humble’ label as Matt Preston votes it a super-versatile vegetable and an especially winning candidate when baked.
If potatoes were a vegetable seeking election to the plant parliament their manifesto would be easy to write. Here’s a vegetable that’s flexible, that can handle all sorts of heat in the kitchen, whether that’s being steamed, fried, boiled or roasted. In terms of technique, they’re super-versatile, adding satiny body to soups and thickening chowders, adding crispness to Friday-night fish suppers or Sunday roasts or giving summer meals and barbecues some carb heft as a potato salad.
They also make lovely bread, bind fritters, become a wonderful golden topping for Irish stew, and can become something mysterious and fluffy when they’re cooked slowly in a casserole (or, if you use waxy potatoes, they add a delightful juicy firmness). I haven’t even mentioned aligot or tartiflette yet. And, quite frankly, there’s no better thing to use for mash, gnocchi or to make crisp skins.
I’d leave out of the electioneering brochure the fact potatoes are also cheap, easy and wonderful as leftovers. Too many real politicians seem both cheap and easy. And there are loads of leftovers hanging around who aren’t that wonderful. Maybe instead we’d recast those characteristics as ‘budget-focused’ and ‘hard-working’.
Over the past 10 years or so, however, one of the greatest expressions of the potato, the baked spud, has waned in both popularity and profile. Until now. Iso-cooks are falling back in love with the crowd-pleasing potential of baked potatoes – they’re perfect as a meal for one or equally the biggest family crowded into home during lockdown.
Those solo diners worrying about oven costs should bake extra potatoes for that aforementioned gnocchi or mash and for making crisp potato skins with sour cream and sweet chilli for tomorrow night at the same time. You’ll be glad you did.
So, in the interests of inspiration, may I present the five other best ways to use baked potatoes. Along with making gnocchi and mash that gives us seven.
LOAD ‘EM
Way before fast-food joints sold loaded fries, there were loaded baked potatoes, aka jacket potatoes. The load could be light like sour cream and a snippet of chives or a classic load like baked beans and grated tasty cheese. Here are my top loads beyond these two classics.
• Curried buttered frozen peas with coriander and a splodge of yoghurt.
• Pan-fried corn, jalapeño chilli and red onion with a dollop of crème fraîche and a squirt of hot sauce.
• Ribbons of cabbage cooked with crisp bacon and the bacon fat.
• Crumbled blue cheese, celery, roasted grapes (roasted with the potatoes, natch) and walnuts with a dude ranch dressing made by mixing sour cream with a little lemon juice or vinegar.
• Or whatever you like – potato loading is a personal issue. How about creamy leeks and gruyère with a little butter and nutmeg? Or barbecued chook with thyme and Dijon? Or tuna mornay?
CRISP ‘EM
So, you’ve scraped out the insides of your potatoes to make cheffy mash or easy gnocchi and you’re left with, in my opinion, the best part of the potato: the skin. For crisp potato skins, spray the insides with any cooking oil, bake them again in a hot oven until crisp and serve them with sour cream marbled with sweet chilli sauce. You won’t regret it. The chip companies that ripped off this Aussie bar classic certainly haven’t.
PO-TACO ‘EM
Those skins are the perfect vehicle for carrying deliciousness to your mouth. Use them like soft tacos and fill them with chilli con carne or your favourite taco filling, salsa and guacamole. Or get creative. When food editor Warren Mendes and I came up with this po-taco idea we loaded the skins with smoked chicken, Chinese crisp chilli sauce and mayonnaise, or buttered corn and spring onion topped with melted cheese and a sprinkling of smoked paprika.
STUFF ‘EM
Take the skin idea to the next level with my mini cottage pies with red onion and chilli jam (pictured). Carefully hollow out hot baked potatoes, fill them with hot cooked mince and top them with grated mozzarella and a mash made with the flesh you hollowed out. Pop them back in the oven to melt the cheese and crisp the edges. Genius!
And at the risk of offering too many ideas, you could even pop a raw egg, a squirt of chilli sauce and some grated cheese inside instead of the mince, but this will need to be properly cooked through rather than just warmed to melt the cheese. Safer and quicker would be to add a soft-poached egg. Add crisp bacon if you like.
WIGGLE ‘EM
Another thing to do with hot potatoes is to throw them around your friends while singing the famous Wiggles song, complete with all the actions. This becomes extra hilarious if you also have cold spaghetti and mashed banana on hand.