Salt-baked Jacket Potatoes
We’re on J for the A-Z of Potatoes and it’s time for an absolute classic… potentially one of my favourite ways to have a potato… the JACKET POTATO!
For my friends across the pond, I’m sorry to confuse the situation, as I know they’re mostly only called baked potatoes over there. So technically this could be B. Well actually I tried a salt-baked method, so DOUBLE TECHNICALLY, they could also be an S. But who cares hey, you still get a recipe for a lovely potato.
So more on that salt-baked technique. It’s my first time trying it on a BIG potato. During my times working in restaurants, we’d had salt-baked fish on the menu and even salt-baked new potatoes (the smaller varieties) but never a BIG SALT-BAKED JACKET. And honestly? I’m wowing. It makes the skin of the potato a lovely hard, salty, savoury, deliciousness. Not the most crispy, but honestly so delicious. I just lathered mine up with butter and dug in, and it was HEAVENLY!
You can tell this is a good recipe because I use ALL CAPS five times, I’m just that EXCITED!
Ingredients
- 700g rock salt, just blended or rough sea salt
- 3 egg whites
- 2 baking potatoes
Method
- Start by making a salt crust, now I’m a cheapskate so I bought rock salt which is cheaper than sea salt and just blended it slightly to make the crust. But you can buy it ready to go it’s just a finer rock salt. Then simply mix the salt with the egg whites. At this point you can also add herbs like rosemary and thyme. Or lemon zest or whole spices to the mix to help infuse flavour but I’m keeping it super simple but just using salt.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C Fan/ 350°F/ Gas mark 4.
- In a tray just big enough to fit your two potatoes add a layer of the salt mix, place the potatoes on top and then cover with the rest of your salt. You can also use little potatoes in this recipe and do more of them.
- Once the potatoes are completely covered, place them in the oven to cook. Approximately an hour and half, but this can depend on the size of the potatoes you have. I would go on this timing and just look for when the salt crust has turned a caramel brown.
- Remove them from the oven and crack open the salty shell. They will be very hot so just be careful.
- Serve with anything you fancy, I have made a cream cheese and chorizo filling, which is I’ll link here so check it out x