I was reading my latest copy of Cook's Illustrated and the author shared a recipe for baking potatoes in a bed of salt. His claim was that it made the potatoes taste better and improved the texture. Naturally, something out of the ordinary intrigued me and I had to try this out. A trip to one of the warehouse stores got me 25 pounds of salt for under four dollars so I was set for many, many attempts on this recipe, if needed.
The first evening, I went with the regular baked potato. I got a heavy-duty baking pan and put about 3 inches of salt into it and pressed the potatoes into it. For added flavor, I put some fresh Rosemary branches between the potatoes. I covered the pan tightly with foil and baked at 450 degrees for about an hour or until the potatoes were just tender. Then I removed the foil, brushed each potato with olive oil, and baked them for another 15 minutes. They were the best baked potatoes I ever had! The potato was almost creamy in texture and butter wasn't really needed to make it taste good. Hint: When they come out of the oven, throw a dish towel over them for a few minutes. It helps steam them a bit so they come out of the salt easier otherwise you get to do some scraping and with a hot potato . . .
My teenage son's favorite are sweet potatoes. He will forego the meat at dinner in order to have room to eat a sweet potato. Although the recipe didn't mention them, I decided to try the same procedure on them. They worked perfectly and it was less mess than wrapping them individually in foil and still having the sugar in them burning down into your oven. Both my husband and son ate less meat and more sweet potato last night.
Besides tasting great and being easy to do, it really looks impressive - like I knew what I was doing!
Regarding the pictures: The one of the left is prior to baking the potatoes. The one on the right, is the finished sweet potatoes.
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