Jacket Potato, the Baked Potato Rebrand We Didn't Know We Needed

What in tarnation is a jacket potato?!

You know her, you have had her, you may overlook her, BUT you shouldn’t. The jacket potato is the chicer, more refined, British way to reference our tried and true, Baked Potato. You sure won’t be expecting a naked potato, or a fried potato, or a potato in a cheesy ball gown. The potato in question will be served with its jacket on! And say things like, Excuse me, good sir, have you seen my hat, and Please, madam, you are stepping on my cape.

I often become a little obsessive after I travel somewhere, especially about the food. All of a sudden, things that were normal at home become exciting, new, and you find out that potatoes have jackets! What else could happen in this magical land if even the potatoes are darned with a jacket and, I presume, a pipe?

I take these delicious traveling treasure nuggets and stow them away in my mind (the notes app of my phone) and pull them out one by one to let myself relive the delights over and over again, AND to share them. I got such a kick out of a rebranded baked potato, then maybe you will too?!

Behold the Jacket Potato, the UK version of a Baked Potato.

The first rule of jacket potatoes is that they MUST be russet potatoes. Russet potatoes have a high starch content, which means when they are cooked, the inside gets very fluffy and turns into a literal dream. Russet potatoes are the poster child for mashed potatoes, for all the reasons I just said, fluffy dream plus butter and cream. Save the Yukon golds, reds, fingerlings, and purple majestys for all your other potato situations.

The second rule of Jacket potatoes is that they MUST BE BAKED, hence why we dubbed them baked potatoes. I repeat, you need to be baking your jacket potatoes. Don’t you dare put a potato into the microwave wrapped in a damp paper towel and then launch it from the microwave to my plate as fast as you can so as not to burn your fingers off, even though the latter is impossible. Nobody wants a microwave potato. It’s NOT the same.

Here’s why.

The Temp

To bake a potato properly, you need to crank that oven up to 500° F. You read that correctly, 500° F. We want it hot as Hades in that oven. (Maybe you save these for days that are cooler; mid-summer baked potato sounds awful anyway.) The high heat of the oven will do two things.

Make the outside crispy.
Make the inside turn into a fluffy cloud.

The Rub

We are cooking the potatoes in a hot oven so the skin, aka jacket, gets crispy. If we want things to get crispy, there has to be fat involved. Fat conducts heat and makes food brown, aka creates flavor! Rub the entire potato with oil, all over, really get in there (it’s round, though, so it should be easy). Then sprinkle the lubed-up potato with salt. You can have a little fun here if you want😉, with the salt, calm down, people. I got this smoked salt from Scotland, and it smells like a peated whiskey; it’s WILD. The next round of Jacket potatoes I whip up will have this sprinkled all over them. But if you can’t make it to Scotland, then some other fun options are: flakey sea salt (I used this), lavender salt, truffle salt, smoked birch salt, or lava salt!

The Reason

With the oven super hot and the potatoes seasoned and oiled, we are creating the perfect environment for the potatoes to be crisp on the outside, soft on the inside (sounds like me). It’s the most desired texture contrast of all time, and who doesn’t want that? You will not get this extreme texture contrast if you cook your potatoes at a lower temperature, OR if you wrap your potatoes in foil. Wrapping your potatoes in foil will essentially steam them. Which is fine…but is it though?

Make sure you poke a couple of holes in the potatoes before they go into the oven, or you might have a blowout on your hands.

Another wild travel discovery was the Jacket Potato-themed restaurants in the UK. The whole vibe is about the potato. You use the baked potato as the base and then top it, fill it, and sauce it with far too many options. There were specialty jackets that were already pre-decided, or you could build your own. What a concept. It is a baked potato bar, but trendy, and you don’t have to go to a weird chain buffet to get your baked potato quota. I also noticed a Subway advertisement that offered a potato instead of bread; 🥔 are a thing over there.

A baked potato bar is not revolutionary or even new, but when we give it the rebrand of Jacket Potato, ooooooh, then we start thinking outside the box!

As far as toppings go:

Caviar, sure, you got a couple of Benjamins to spare.
Butter, salt, and sour cream, classic, I am always a fan. I also require chives.
Chili and cheese, sign me up!
Spicy sausage, pickled onions, and mustard, okay girrrrrl.
To lean into the UK theme, butter, baked beans, and some cheddar cheese. Yesh please.

I opted for a refined combo version of the classic and the UK. Our girl Alison Roman has a BRAND NEW cookbook that was just released early this month, and there is a recipe for just the thing I was looking for.

Crispy Baked Beans with Mushrooms & Parmesan (page 175)

If any of the words in that recipe title tickle you deep down in that dark and hungry part of your gut, you know this recipe is worth making. And it is. GO buy the book, you will not regret it.

These baked beans are rich, savory, meaty (but with no meat), and full of umami and onion. And what a great topping it will make for my Jacket Potato.

Muuuuuaaaahhahhahahah.

You can make this recipe ahead. I might recommend this because there are steps, steps that should not be rushed, as we are building flavor here. Building flavor takes time; it just does. I didn’t make the flavor rules, but trust that they are worth following.

Cook the onions - not caramelized, we want them more crusty.
Cook the mushrooms - they need to release most of their water before they can brown and get crispy.
Add the beans and cheese and season with salt and pepper. Put into a casserole dish.
Top with breadcrumbs and more parmesan.
Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes.

These beans will make your house smell incredible, and they taste even better. Allow them to cool completely and store them in the fridge for a few days. You can eat them cold or gently reheat them. If you want to impress people at a party, bring this dish. Do make sure you label it, as it won’t look like anything more than a pile of crusty bread crumbs, BUT we know that something delicious is lurking below.

And so I bring you the Jacket Potato topped with Crispy Baked Beans with mushrooms and parmesan and a plop of yogurt (or sour cream). Never again will you serve a baked potato. Pinky swear??

It’s Jacket Potatoes from here on out!

Are you feeling some type of way about brown food? Well, I am here to tell you it’s fine. Brown is a beautiful color. It couldn’t hurt to throw a sprinkling of parsley on too, OR chives, I forgot both 😟. This is real-time cooking right here, baby.

Looking for an alternative to mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, well, this one seems like a decent swap. OR the better idea is to whip up some baked potatoes the day after Thanksgiving and use all the T-day leftovers as toppings!

Cheers,

Nicole | Butter Cult

Peated Whiskey, Brown Food, and Blowouts