Blogger's Test Kitchen: Salt Baked Potatoes

Come along for a test drive of a recipe from the September 2011 issue of Cooks Illustrated, relative of "America's Test Kitchen".  We are trying out Salt Baked Potatoes.  The concept is to pack potatoes in regular Morton salt, layer in some herbs, and wait for the outcome.  The hypothesis is that the salt makes the potatoes more tender. My potatoes were fully immersed in salt.  (Note: I would have done sea salt, but since the fancy cooks at the magazine didn't, this home cook's not going to question it!)  Surrounding the potatoes were shallots, rosemary, and cloves of garlic.

Salt dipped potatoes going into the oven

The potatoes baked happily along for normal length for baked potatoes, at the usual temperature.  Really the "trick" in the recipe was to douse them in salt.  The aroma coming out of the oven was not the best. It smelled like potato skins.  The potatoes looked amazing when they were done.

Potatoes oven-baked in herbed salt

The moment of truth came when the potatoes were served!  They were DRY beyond belief.  The potato SKINS were nice and salty, but....a skin does not a meal make! 

VERDICT:  Serve your potatoes with salted herbed butter instead of baking them in salt!   It was a totally fun experiment to try out the recipe though!