Why jacket potatoes are great

We haven't done any 'great' posts for a while, and this is a dish truly worthy of being described as 'great'.

The humble potato can be cooked in many many ways – mashed potato is the ultimate comfort food, and chips are phenomenal, but you can also boil, sauté and roast them. You can make thin french (or freedom) fries, or thick chip shop style chips, potato wedges, potato dauphinoise, potato salad – with seasoning, herbs and spices the sky really is the limit. And that’s before you even begin to consider the varieties of potato you can get – jersey royals, new potatoes, king edwards, maris pipers, anya’s – and those are just the few I know – according the British Potato Council there are thousands grown around the world, including 80 commercial varieties in Great Britain (I know – hilarious: and it was only set up in 1997, not, as I’d assumed seeped in some historical urgency, demonstrating the centuries old British love of the spud. No – this administration set it up and the next will probably abolish it. And then they wonder where political apathy stems from: success governments who piffle around the edges, political parties who cannot just agree on the need for some basic and important independent state funded organisations.)

Back to the matter at hand - why single out the humble jacket potato? Because it is, quite simply unbeatable. It’s a great hangover lunch. It’s good for an easy- yet filling- supper. how can anyone not enjoy a jacket spud??? But I think its quite a British way to eat a potato: my best mate said they were the one thing she missed whilst traveling. And the fillings: oh where do I start on the fillings?? Lets start simply and build it up:

• Butter, salt and pepper – simple yet satisfying, and a great carb side with a steak.
• Sour cream – very American, nice on its own, or again as a side.
• Grated cheddar cheese is where the spud comes into its own: a meal within itself, you need nothing with this, great when you are getting over a tummy bug and need simple filling food.
• Grated cheese and baked beans – oh how I love this filling. So quintessentially British. Who else would put baked beans into a baked potato fill it with cheese and squidge the lot together? My mouths watering already. This is often my hungover lunchtime choice.
• Tuna (often with mayonnaise and sweetcorn) – nice – I find you have to be in the mood, and not too much mayo. Corn adds a nice sweeness.
• Chilli or veggy chilli nice for dinner, particularly in the winter next to a roaring pub fire, with a big salad or some steamed veg and glass of red wine….
• Broccoli and cheese (the kind of cheese you use changes the taste of this completely – mature cheddar is great, but a salty creamy blue cheese, like stilton is phenomenal) – an amazing summer supper, with a crisp green salad and cold glass of dry white wine. This is a firm fave with me and S this summer.
• A nice spicy twist is to stir fried peppers and mushroom with chilli and spices, and grate some red Leicester cheese– split the potatoes, scoop out the inside leaving the ‘jackets’ to one side: mix it all together then carefully re-fill the jackets sprinkle some cheese on top then grill.

I won’t go on, but you get the idea – so many variations its too difficult to attempt to even list them all, but some others include garlic mushrooms, coleslaw, baked beans, gooey cheese like camembert, steamed green beans, stir fried veg, and many more classic combo’s such as cheese and sweetcorn, bacon and brie etc etc. you can mix it up and there are NO rules - just try different things and see what you like: most things taste better in a jacket potato.

“What kind of potato and how do I make this simple feast!?”

Choose the spud you want (the potato council has some ideas) and then stick them in the oven for as long as it takes to have crispy shells and soft fluffy insides. In my view, microwaved jacket potatoes are an abomination and should be banned.

Every mouthful of a good jacket potato is a joy - and that my friends, is why the jacket potato is great.