You ever get ideas that just blow your own mind?
I just had this one:
Using instant mashed potato... to fill a baked potato! :open_mouth:
C'mon, hit me with some moar!
Not this... if there's anything that doesn't taste like mashed potato, it's instant mashed potato. Even though it's made from potato, it tastes like it was sent to an Eylmer's Glue factory at some point in the process. Sorry Idahoan, it taste like paste. This is how to make good baked potatoes stuffed with mashed:
Take the potato, wash it, dry it, poke holes in it.
Put on a thin coat of oil, then kosher salt. Bake at 475 F for 1 hour directly on the oven rack (put a catch tray of aluminum -or aluminium for you brits-under to catch the oil that drips so you don’t have to clean the oven again)
This will give a baked potato with a nice crisp crust. Open the potato and scoop out the outside, mash with lots of butter until mostly smooth. Put back in potato skin and top with salt, pepper, and gravy or other sauce. Eat the mashed potato and then eat the crunchy and salty skin.
You can also add sour cream, bacon, cheese, chives, whatever directly to the mashed portion. Top with a sprinkle of paprika. For a really interesting flavor, if you like garlic, use toum or alioli, instead of butter. The flavor explodes. If you want steak (
@Blind Owl) or chicken, keep some for the meat too. If you eat chips (Fries to Americans) try toum with them instead of ketchup or vinegar. It will amaze you.
If you don't know toum, you might have eaten it in a Lebanese restaurant once or twice. It's simple to make at home. I make it at home using a food processor, but a blender would work. I know a woman who makes it the traditional way, with mortar and pestle. There's a trick for removing the skin from garlic cloves by the way. Microwave for 5 or 10 seconds. The skin will then simply fall off.
Imperial measures:
- 4 cups chilled sunflower oil or canola oil
- 1 3/4 tsp pure sea or kosher salt.
Peel and split the garlic in half, remove any green bits.
Put in food processor with 1/4 cup of water, and 1/4 cup of lemon juice.
Blend until it's smooth, then prepare 1 cup of oil. While the blender or food processor is running, pour in oil very very slowly. Thinnest stream you can. You can put it in a plastic bag with a pin hole in the bottom and let it run out from there if you can't hold your hands steady.
After 1 cup, add another tablespoon of both lemon juice and water, sort of splashed onto the surface as it blends.
Continue this, one cup at a time until the oil is consumed, adding 1 tablespoon of water and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice after each cup. At the end, add the salt, and turn off the blender after a few seconds.
Now, while you're doing this, what's happening is that the oil is hydrogenating. If it's working, it'll turn into a kind of light, white paste. If it doesn't work, you'll have a runny mess. You probably poured the oil in too fast. When you're finished, you should have about 2 pints of a light white almost margarine like paste that tastes like it was sent from heaven. To try it, use a carrot or celery... don't try to eat it straight. You won't get the idea of the flavor.
This should keep a few weeks to a month in a covered container in the fridge. Throw it away when it separates.