Everyone has their own choice of comfort meal, as well as their own way of doing it. A jacket potato is a quintessentially British dish, the ultimate ‘beige food’ classic that you can doll up anyway you want.
Some people bake them in the oven for hours on end; some cheat and nuke them in the microwave. Others, like Tom Kerridge, do it completely differently. In a recent quick-fire questions Instagram video, he shared his thoughts on the best way to serve a jacket—or mashed—potato.
Essentially, the chef described a hybrid between the two much-loved potato dishes; where the potato is baked in the oven, the flesh is scraped out and then mashed slightly, mixed with butter or yoghurt or sour cream, then returned to the skin and topped with cheese. Try saying that five times over.
If it’s good enough for one of the UK’s top chefs, then it must be good enough for us mere plebs. Luckily, you don’t need any fancy ingredients; you’ll probably already have them in your kitchen.
The longest part of the process is making sure the jacket potato is baked, which can take a long time. One hour and 20 minutes, precisely.
Hurriedly, I scooped out the flesh of the hot potato, to my hand’s detriment. Depending on how you like your potato skins, they may be slightly fragile and break. But as long as you have the hull of your starchy boat, it should be fine.
Although Tom doesn’t specify an amount of butter, I sliced up some blocks and added them to the mashed flesh. You can leave it a little bit chunky or any consistency you prefer. But if you’re going by Tom’s recipe, keep a little chunk in it.
Carefully spoon the chunky mash back into the skins. Cheese is optional at this point, but if you’re a fromage fiend, grate away.
I added mounds of grated mature cheddar and stuck it back in the oven or under the grill. Ideally, I’d like the cheese to be bubbly with flecks of brown-gold, but whenever and however you like your cheese, whack it out.
They remind me of loaded potato skins sans the “loaded” part. Really, I’ll eat a potato in any form.
Let’s just say, it makes jacket potatoes more interesting. I think it’s a better move to mix the grated cheese in with the potato to give that unctuous ‘cheese-pull’.
While the process may take slightly longer than a 15-minute meal, Tom Kerridge’s mash-jacket-potato-hybrid is a fun way to enjoy a potato. Yes, while it may be simple, there’s nothing more comforting than a jacket.
Next time, though, I’ll be smothering it in Heinz Spaghetti Hoops. That will really be the cherry on top of the cake.
Jacket potatoes
Ingredients
- 1 baking potato
- Either butter, yoghurt, sour cream or Creme Fraiche
- Cheese, grated (optional)
Method
Bake the potato as instructed on the packet. Once cooked, remove the flesh of the potato from the skin. Make sure you don’t throw away the skin.
Mash lightly with a fork, adding the butter – or other liquid sauce you’ve chosen, making sure it’s mixed well but still a little chunky. Place the mashed potatoes back into the skin.
Season with salt and pepper, or any spices of your choice. Top with some cheese, and place back in the oven or under the grill until it’s nice and crispy.
