Scrummy restauranty filled baked potatoes

It might sound ridiculous to have a blog post about baked potatoes. You shove ‘em in the oven, or microwave if you’re as disorganised as me and only realise you’re hungry once it’s starving o’clock, and that’s that, right?

But I realised there were baked potatoes a la home – a kinda wrinkly, dry side dish to a bit of chicken or fish –and baked potatoes a la restaurant: fluffy deliciousness, oozing with fillings, crispy on the outside and steaming and warming. And I wanted to bring that baked potato out of my oven. 

So this isn’t a hard recipe, nor is it particularly diet-friendly, but it is a comforting one for a cold evening. You’ll feel so warm inside that you’ll be able to defer putting the heating on- and anything that stops British Gas raking it in is a good meal indeed.

Ingredients

One baking potato per person - King Edward, Maris Piper, Ailsa and Golden Wonder all work well
Olive oil
Butter 
Salt
Desired fillings: my favourite is the old classic mature cheddar and Heinz Baked Beans, but you might like tuna mayo, chilli con carne, meat or something altogether crazier

Recipe

Rinse the potatoes of mud, scrub well, and prick a few times with a sharp knife or fork
Drizzle a few drops of olive oil and twists of salt over each potato, and roll them around so it spreads around the tatty
Bake at about 200C for about 50 minutes to an hour - until the skins are crispy. 
Now take them out the oven, but keep it running.
Slice each potato open, but don’t actually break the skin all the way around – just enough to scoop out the fluffy flesh of each potato.
Put the inside of each of the tatties together in a bowl, and stir in your filling – grated cheese and beans, or tuna, etc.
Now re-build your potatoes, scooping the fleshy mixture back into the skins, filling each up to the brim and sticking the skins back together.
Bake for another 5-10 minutes, until the fillings are piping hot and melty, and the skin is crispy.
Then tuck in……..