Chef's one-ingredient trick to make baked potatoes crispier and tastier
There are few better culinary experiences than tucking into the humble baked potato and now you can do so with the perfect recipe.
For those evenings when you can't be fussed to whip up a culinary storm, baked potatoes are the staple you need, but there's an art to crafting spuds that burst with flavour rather than ending up as dull oven-dwellers.
Taking just an extra five minutes for prep can transform your humble tattie into a taste sensation, dodging the all-too-common fate of bland and weary wedges. Enter Sylvia Fountaine, a culinary whizz and the brains behind Feasting at Home, who reveals getting the perfect flavoursome baked potato is dead simple – the secret? Salt, and plenty of it.
She said: "Use sea salt or kosher salt, and be generous. Salt goes a long way in enhancing the natural flavour of the potato skins."
It may seem simple, but potatoes contain a lot of water, and if this water is not released while cooking, your baked potato will be starchy, limp, and bland.
The power of salt isn't just old wives' tales; this trusty seasoning pulls double duty, mopping up moisture while crisping up the skin for a scrumptious crunchy bite.
Not only does it beautify your bake with a crackly tan, salt elevates the humble earthy sweetness inherently found in every spud.
Salt is your go-to for a game-changing baked potato experience, guaranteeing that each mouthful comes with an irresistible snap of golden delight.
How to make baked potatoes taste even better
Medium russet potatoes
Olive oil
Sea or kosher salt
Instructions:
Start by cranking your oven to 220C, slotting a rack right smack in the middle. Give those potatoes a good scrub under the tap, then dry them off with kitchen paper.
Give your spuds a light brush of olive oil and lashings of salt for that perfect seasoning.
Do not wrap them in tin foil, as this will cause the baked potato to create more steam and become soggy. Instead, roast them so you get a crispy skin.
A trio of fork jabs per potato is all you need to stop any oven disasters – think of it as their escape route for steam. Pop those beauties on a baking tray and slide them into the oven's heart. Give them an hour or so to transform.
The moment they're done, get them out and slice them open pronto.
Sylvia said: "This ensures potatoes that are fluffy and not gummy."
Grab a tea towel, give them a gentle squeeze to expose that fluffy interior and use a fork to fluff up further.
Top them off with whatever your heart desires, and voilà – a baked potato that's as scrumptious as it looks.
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Daily Mirror
29-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Chef's one-ingredient trick to make baked potatoes crispier and tastier
There are few better culinary experiences than tucking into the humble baked potato and now you can do so with the perfect recipe. For those evenings when you can't be fussed to whip up a culinary storm, baked potatoes are the staple you need, but there's an art to crafting spuds that burst with flavour rather than ending up as dull oven-dwellers. Taking just an extra five minutes for prep can transform your humble tattie into a taste sensation, dodging the all-too-common fate of bland and weary wedges. Enter Sylvia Fountaine, a culinary whizz and the brains behind Feasting at Home, who reveals getting the perfect flavoursome baked potato is dead simple – the secret? Salt, and plenty of it. She said: "Use sea salt or kosher salt, and be generous. Salt goes a long way in enhancing the natural flavour of the potato skins." It may seem simple, but potatoes contain a lot of water, and if this water is not released while cooking, your baked potato will be starchy, limp, and bland. The power of salt isn't just old wives' tales; this trusty seasoning pulls double duty, mopping up moisture while crisping up the skin for a scrumptious crunchy bite. Not only does it beautify your bake with a crackly tan, salt elevates the humble earthy sweetness inherently found in every spud. Salt is your go-to for a game-changing baked potato experience, guaranteeing that each mouthful comes with an irresistible snap of golden delight. How to make baked potatoes taste even better Medium russet potatoes Olive oil Sea or kosher salt Instructions: Start by cranking your oven to 220C, slotting a rack right smack in the middle. Give those potatoes a good scrub under the tap, then dry them off with kitchen paper. Give your spuds a light brush of olive oil and lashings of salt for that perfect seasoning. Do not wrap them in tin foil, as this will cause the baked potato to create more steam and become soggy. Instead, roast them so you get a crispy skin. A trio of fork jabs per potato is all you need to stop any oven disasters – think of it as their escape route for steam. Pop those beauties on a baking tray and slide them into the oven's heart. Give them an hour or so to transform. The moment they're done, get them out and slice them open pronto. Sylvia said: "This ensures potatoes that are fluffy and not gummy." Grab a tea towel, give them a gentle squeeze to expose that fluffy interior and use a fork to fluff up further. Top them off with whatever your heart desires, and voilà – a baked potato that's as scrumptious as it looks.
Metro
08-05-2025
- Metro
'We just went wild': how children celebrated cakes and peace on VE Day
Peter Bourne was just a child when he witnessed an RAF pilot eject from a fighter jet, only to be shot to pieces in mid-air. But as large swathes of the country were celebrating VE Day in 1945 that haunting image was all the 10-year-old could think about. Peter, now 91, and the rest of his traumatised local community in Hurst Green, East Sussex, did not join in the street parties and late night dancing enjoyed everywhere else. His sombre end to the Second World War stands in stark contrast to the joy recalled by others who told Metro about their childhood memories of VE Day. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Yet they all recalled surprising memories more complicated and nuanced than the photos and news reels suggest. Not long after Peter witnessed the airplane horror in the skies, a German Messerschmitt pilot crash landed outside the village. Peter said: 'The pilot had survived the crash, but it mashed his legs up. 'He crawled out onto the steps of the police station and was begging for help. 'Then a chap from the crowd came forward with a shotgun and shot him.' Hurst Green was on the flight path of German planes targeting London, so the village regularly fell victim to bombs and other violence. It is no surprise then that even as a child, Peter's VE Day was characterised by relief. He told Metro: 'We felt totally relieved. I thought at the end of it all, thank Christ I'm still here. 'At the end of the war we felt totally bitter, everybody felt the same.' As for celebrations, that is one thing his neighbours decided not to do. 'They never happened,' he added. 'There were street parties, but a lot of us felt we didn't want to celebrate after what we'd gone through. 'The attitude was why do we need to celebrate after we suffer such a horrendous time?' While the announcement of the German surrender gave way to silent reflection in Hurst Green, it sparked huge joy in Sylvia Yarwood's street in Cardiff. She too had had close shaves with fighter jets during the Battle of Britain, as she lived near the valuable docks in the Welsh capital. Sylvia, now 91, told Metro: 'We had the air raid shelter. I remember being dragged down to the shelter when the sirens went. 'One time, we must have missed the siren. We were late running down the shelter and the Germans were roaring overhead. 'The searchlights were out and the guns were firing.' These frightening scenes were long in the past by 1945. By that time everyone had read the 'huge headlines' that Hitler had died at the end of April, and everyone was waiting for the war to officially end. Just 11 at the time, Sylvia remembers the moment her family heard the radio confirmation of victory from Winston Churchill himself on VE Day – and the joyous outburst it triggered. 'We're glued to the radio, waiting for Churchill's speech' Sylvia said. 'Until that happened, I don't think anybody believed it was over. 'As soon as it was announced, everybody ran out into the street and was shouting and shaking hands and hugging each other. ' So we kids just went wild. You cannot describe the relief. 'Kids were dancing around and that.' Her street's VE Day was touched by sadness too. Their neighbour, Albert Elkins, remained a prisoner of war in Japan and many wanted to respect his parent's grief. Their real joy came when Albert returned after the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Sylvia explained: 'When he arrived at the station, we all lined up and clapped and said, 'Well done, Albert, our hero'.' For Pamela Attrill, who was just 10 at the time, it was not the end of the war but the sweet treats that she was celebrating on May 8 1945. She lived in the heavily bombed city of Portsmouth during the war, which left her 'very scared' as her family often slept in the caged air raid shelter in their home. But her relief at the end of the war was that she could finally taste sugary food again. The now 90-year-old told Metro: 'As a kid, all you can think about is parties. 'We'd been deprived of jellies and special treats for a long time.'Cakes and jellies? 'We could not believe our eyes. It seems nothing to you now, but at that time it was important. And as kids we loved it.' Sugar was a key restricted in the British rationing system, introduced to ensure a fair distribution of scarce resources. It was followed by a rationing of sweets and chocolate from 1942. But in anticipation of the end of the war, the local mums had 'saved up their baking goods and baked in advance'. Ready for the big day, her street put on a giant celebration despite the noticeable limited resources. 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The Guardian
22-12-2024
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Why the Black American origins of mac and cheese are so hotly debated
It stood on my kitchen bookshelf, Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook: From Hemingway, South Carolina, to Harlem, with its ashen purple spine and gold lettering that twinkled in the November light. In what felt like a taunt, the book's presence made me reconsider a takeout Thanksgiving on the couch. Since 2021, I've lost both parents, which has consumed both my heart and my usual cooking mind, dampening my desire to reach for the familiar. The cookbook, a portal to my childhood and one of my mom's favorites from her massive cookbook collection, had a traditional recipe I knew I had to try: golden brown macaroni and cheese. I'm a Black Southern woman and cook with roots in Georgia and Alabama, so making mac and cheese was not something I needed formal instruction to execute or master. But in the past few years, the way I've made my mac with a béchamel-based roux and too many fancy cheeses I can't pronounce was no longer satisfying. I had started to crave the 'old school' way of making it – the way our aunties, older cousins and grandmas made it: with eggs, Country Crock or Imperial margarine, elbow macaroni noodles, evaporated milk and a smattering of sharp cheddar cheese with its characteristic bite and twang. The online debate about the different ways to make the popular soul-food side – roux or no roux – has gone on for years, reappearing like clockwork every holiday season. This discourse – fueled by posts on X, Instagram reels flaunting gooey roux-based cheese pulls and TikToks of users defending their family's traditional versions – is almost always intense. That's mainly because it is informed by the flawed assumption that there is one rightful, authentic way for Black people to make mac and cheese, the culinary centerpiece of many of our gatherings. As a result, the tension goes far beyond what one might consider petty social media arguments. 'These ideas and arguments surface over time,' said Psyche Williams-Forson, PhD, the chair of the American studies program at University of Maryland-College Park, and the author of the James Beard award-winning book Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America. 'Part of what I know happens is we as Black people, and we as people, are so unaware of our history that we think everything is new and novel. If we would release that nostalgia and be more informed about our histories, perhaps we wouldn't have so many devastating challenges in our thinking.' Only then might one note, for instance, that James Hemings, a formerly enslaved man who became America's first French-trained chef, is largely credited for bringing macaroni and cheese to the US in the late 18th century. Hemings made mac and cheese in the roux style that so many of us unknowingly returned to in modern times. In the decades after Hemings' introduction, though, Black Southerners, many of whom had previously been enslaved, used what ingredients they had on hand, creating a more simplified version with the egg custard base, which then led to its widespread adoption as 'the original'. Williams-Forson added that recipes are not static but instead are ever-evolving, changing with climate, available resources, palate preferences and regional variances. In a video on the innovation of Hemings, who learned to make mac and cheese in France as a companion of his enslaver Thomas Jefferson, the food historian Karima Moyer-Nocchi noted the historical development of the dish. While mac and cheese started off as an ancient Roman festival food, different renditions have always been part of its story. The colonial-era cookbook The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy had perhaps the earliest recorded recipe of mac and cheese, but another 'very popular book' in the colonies was Elizabeth Raffald's The Experienced English Housekeeper, Moyer-Nocchi said in the video: 'She has a recipe that is actually called macaroni and parmesan, where the thickening takes place with a ball of butter that is rolled in flour, a very common way of thickening then. She's also got cream in it.' Seeing the mac and cheese commentary online this time around showed me something I wasn't otherwise aware of: there were others like me looking back to the way we used to make it, reaching for those recipes. Those of us trying to shirk off internalized shame that taught us we needed to make changes – swapping out cheddar for smoked gouda, gruyere or fontina – in the name of elevation. And that there were many others overwhelmed with grief, like I was, that shaped how or what they cooked. The reasons for this are clear: Black families like mine have seen unprecedented levels of loss in the last four years. A two-year assessment examining the Covid-19 pandemic's impact on Black children, for instance, reports older Black Americans aged 65-74 as five times more likely to die from Covid than white Americans of that age. Our elders, those aged 75-84, died from Covid nearly four times more than those of white Americans. This means countless Black children lost either a parent or caregiver during those early years of the pandemic, and many had been the keepers of food rituals within our families. With those generational losses, many of us attach impassioned feelings to a dish that is so much more than just food. Hemings, for his part, paved the way for all our families' renditions, whether roux-based or not. Black Southern cooks like our enslaved foremothers and later generations of women like Sylvia Woods, of the famed Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem, were the true progenitors of mac and cheese. Though Woods' restaurant is still open, her death in 2012 crystallized the heaviness of what we continue to lose when it comes to our food and the indelible memories attached to it. Who will capture these culinary heirlooms? Are newer generations up to the task of passing the baton? Some of those generations are joyously embodying the newfound culinary responsibility, without the heaviness of obligation. Jordan Ali, a spiritual worker from Denmark, South Carolina, believes the commentary online has been interesting to watch. Her two-part TikTok series, Been Country, features her 81-year-old grandmother Rosa Tyler in real time making her mac and cheese. I used Ali's TikToks along with the recipe in Sylvia's cookbook to help steel me. 'I felt like I needed to document the recipes I grew up on,' Ali said about her decision to post her grandmother cooking online. 'I learned how to cook because I stayed with my grandmother. I was adopted by her and she was my guardian for the first part of my life. It was also a way to honor her.' Ali sees these recipes as tangible mementos of her lineage, recipes she's determined to preserve for herself and future generations. 'She's getting older and I wanted documentation for myself, for my children to see, for my siblings to look at later down the line,' Ali said. 'It's not just cooking. It's really communing with your elders. They're telling stories, they're cooking, you're talking, you're laughing. It's an experience. It's spiritual. This is ritual for me.' Ritual is also taking things from the past and using them as memory-keepers to fuel how we move forward in the future. In an era punctuated with persistent loss, in times that continue to confound, our culinary rituals are a scrumptious bridge, one that connects us to what can never really be lost or forgotten if we insist on remembering.
