Subject: Speaking of baked potatoes
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking

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From: Jill McQuown
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:58:05 -0600
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That's dinner in about an hour. Got a nice sized baking potato. Scrubbed it, poked it with a fork and rubbed it all over with butter and sprinkled it well with salt. I like a nice crispy skin on my bakers. 425F for an hour in the oven. I have some Asiago cheese just ready to be grated into the buttered (this time inside!) piping hot potato. It will then be sprinkled liberally with crumbled cooked bacon and thoroughly enjoyed.

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From: Andy (q)
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:18:27 -0600
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Jill said...
> I like a nice crispy skin on my bakers.
> 425F for an hour in the oven.

Whoa! 425 F for an hour??

I bake russets at 375 F. for 45 minutes. You could probably get crusty/crispy skins at that temp without cooking out the insides.

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From: Jill McQuown
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:28:26 -0600
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Andy wrote:
> Whoa! 425 F for an hour??
>
> I bake russets at 375 F. for 45 minutes. You could probably get
> crusty/crispy skins at that temp without cooking out the insides.

I have an "apartment oven". The temps are a bit off and there's nothing to be done about it; they aren't about to replace it. Besides, this is a very large potato, I'll probably only eat half of it, if that much. I'll have the other half for breakfast in the morning when we meet for our chat ;) Speaking of chat, where are you, sweetums?

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From: Leonard Blaisdell (leo at greatbasin.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:20:31 -0800
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Andy wrote:
> Whoa! 425 F for an hour??
>
> I bake russets at 375 F. for 45 minutes. You could probably get crusty/crispy
> skins at that temp without cooking out the insides.

In my experience, baked russets are quite forgiving once they're done on the inside. I don't worry about them once I chuck them in the oven. On the other hand, I constantly fret over simmering red or YG potatoes when I'm about to make potato salad. Go figure.