Baked potato facts for kids
Baked potato with butter
|
|
| Alternative names | Jacket potato |
|---|---|
| Course | Side dish or main |
| Main ingredients | Potato |
| Ingredients generally used | Butter, cheese, sour cream, chives, dill, bacon bits, gravy, baked beans, and/or meat |
A baked potato is a delicious way to cook a potato. In some parts of the United Kingdom, people call it a jacket potato. The best baked potatoes have a soft, fluffy inside and a nice, crispy skin.
You can eat a baked potato with many different toppings. Popular choices include butter, cheese, sour cream, gravy, or even baked beans. Some people like to add ground meat or corned beef too.
Certain types of potatoes are better for baking. For example, Russet and King Edward potatoes work well. This is because of their size and how they feel when cooked. Many people think potatoes are unhealthy, but baked potatoes can actually be part of a healthy meal!
Contents
How to Bake a Potato
Potatoes can be baked in many ways. You can use a regular oven, a convection oven, or even a microwave oven. Some people bake them on a barbecue grill or in an open fire. Restaurants sometimes have special ovens just for baking many potatoes at once.
Getting Ready to Bake
Before you start, make sure your potato is clean. Scrub it well, wash it, and then dry it. You should also remove any "eyes" or bad spots on the potato's skin.
Next, you can rub the potato with a little olive oil or butter. Adding some salt can make the skin extra tasty. It's a good idea to poke the potato a few times with a fork or knife. This lets steam escape while it cooks. If you don't prick a potato before microwaving, it might burst open!
Baking Times
Baking a large potato in a regular oven takes about one to two hours. You'll usually set the oven to 200 °C (392 °F). Microwaving is much faster, taking only six to twelve minutes. But microwaving usually doesn't make the skin crispy. Some recipes suggest using both: microwave the potato first, then finish it in a regular oven for a crispy skin.
To Wrap or Not to Wrap?
If you wrap your potato in aluminium foil before baking, it will stay moist inside. If you leave it unwrapped, the skin will get crispier. When cooking over an open fire or in barbecue coals, wrapping in foil helps stop the skin from burning. A potato is fully cooked when its inside temperature reaches 99 °C (210 °F).
Eating the Skin
After baking, some people only eat the soft inside of the potato. But others love the crispy skin! The skin is actually full of dietary fiber, which is good for you. Smaller potatoes bake faster and keep more of their Vitamin C.
Fun Ways to Eat Baked Potatoes
There are many creative ways to enjoy a baked potato!
Loaded Potato Skins
Some people bake a potato, then scoop out the soft inside. They mix this potato flesh with other yummy things. This could be cheese, butter, or bacon bits. Then, they spoon the mixture back into the potato skins. These "shells" go back into the oven to get warm and melty. In America, these are often called loaded potato skins or twice-baked potatoes.
Different Toppings
In the United Kingdom, people use many different toppings for their jacket potatoes. Popular choices include baked beans, curried chicken, coronation chicken, chilli con carne, tuna, and prawn fillings. In Scotland, some even use haggis as a filling!
Hasselback Potatoes
A special way to prepare potatoes is called Hasselback potatoes. For this, you cut the potato into very thin slices. But you don't cut all the way through, so the potato stays together at the bottom. Then, you bake it in the oven. Sometimes, people add cheese on top. This dish was first made at a fancy hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, called Hasselbacken.
Baked Potatoes Around the World
Baked potatoes are enjoyed in many places, often with unique local twists!
North America
Many restaurants in North America serve baked potatoes as a side dish. They often come with toppings like butter, sour cream, chives, shredded cheese, and bacon bits. You can choose which toppings you want.
Sometimes, a large, stuffed baked potato can be a whole meal! It might be filled with meat like barbecued or smoked meat, or chili con carne. Vegetables like broccoli are also sometimes added.
Idaho's Famous Potatoes
Idaho is a state in the United States known for growing a lot of potatoes. In the early 1900s, a railroad company called the Northern Pacific Railroad helped make Idaho's baked potatoes famous.
A man named Hazen Titus, who managed the railroad's dining cars, heard farmers complaining. Their potatoes were too big to sell easily, so they fed them to hogs! These huge potatoes could weigh two to five pounds. Titus and his team found that these "inedible" potatoes tasted amazing when baked slowly.
The railroad started buying these big potatoes and serving them on their trains. Soon, "the Great Big Baked Potato" became a slogan for the railroad. They even built a giant potato sign that was 40 feet long and 18 feet wide! It had winking eyes and a glowing butter cube. This helped promote the railroad for about 50 years.
-
Hollywood star Lillian Russell shows off the Northern Pacific Railway's potatoes in this promotional postcard.
-
A comic postcard from around 1910-1920 promoting "The Great Big Baked Potato".
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, a baked potato is often called a jacket potato. They have been popular there for many years. In the mid-1800s, street vendors sold jacket potatoes during the colder months. It's thought that about 10 tons of baked potatoes were sold every day in London this way!
Common jacket potato toppings in the UK include grated cheddar cheese, baked beans, tuna mayonnaise, chili con carne, and chicken and bacon. Baked potatoes are also a traditional food eaten on Guy Fawkes Night, often baked in the glowing embers of a bonfire.
France
In France, a baked potato is called "pomme de terre au four." It can be served with a meat dish. There are even fast-food restaurants called "patateries" where the baked potato is the main part of the meal.
Armenia
In some Armenian villages near Lake Sevan, there's a special way to make baked potatoes called "p'ur" (Armenian: փուռ). They use dried cow dung as fuel to slowly bake unseasoned potatoes placed in the middle of the stack.
Turkey
Kumpir is a popular fast food in Turkey. It's a baked potato with many different fillings. The potatoes are wrapped in foil and baked in special ovens. Then, they are cut open, and the inside is mixed with unsalted butter and puréed kaşar cheese.
You can add all sorts of foods to a kumpir: mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, sweetcorn, sausage slices, carrots, mushrooms, and Russian salad. Cafés in Ortaköy, Istanbul, are famous for their kumpir and offer even more ingredients.
Russia
Baked potatoes with fillings are becoming more popular as a fast food in Russia, even though they are not a very old traditional Russian dish.
Brazil
Baked potatoes are quite popular in Brazil. They are sometimes called batata Inglesa, which means 'English potato'. This name likely comes from using an English potato type, like the 'King Edward'.
See also
In Spanish: Jacket potato para niños
