We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how water isn’t the best liquid to boil potatoes in for mash (yes, really).
We’ve even shared that fancy olive oil isn’t your best bet for roasting spuds properly.
But the midweek classic, jacket potatoes, can’t be mucked up too much. Right?
Well, according to Michelin-trained chef Poppy O’Toole (@poppycooks on TikTok), it might be hard to mess up; but it can certainly be improved.
We’ve recently written about her garlic bread-like jacket potato recipe.
In sharing how she achieves the cheesy, herbaceous parcel of perfection, she revealed a trick that you can use on every jacket potato you make going forward.
Which is?
The chef and cookbook author cuts the top of the potatoes into a “star” shape once it’s almost baked, whereas most of us would cut a cross or even a single line into its surface.
She does this by placing three cuts on the top to make a * shape, rather than twice for a + shaped opening.
“Once it’s baked ― well, almost ― you can cut it into like a star shape. Rather than just into fours, into sixes,” she shared.
Poppy explains in her video that she does this because “those little star crosses make it extra delicious and crispy.”
How come?
It gives the top of the potato more surface area to be crisped up by the oil she places on the outside of her baked spuds.
And because there’s more room to stuff your filling into the potato, you’ll have less bland starchiness and more delicious flavour.
She uses some whizzed-up feta or cream cheese to stuff her potatoes with, followed by parsley and confit garlic butter once it’s all out of the oven.
But listen, as an avid beans-on-jackets fan, I’ll definitely be using the hack to pack every last legume in there rather than having to scoop them all off the side of my plate at the end of the meal...