ITV This Morning's chef Phil Vickery shared a clever hack when cooking a jacket potato which reduces the cooking time. The clever hack involves putting a spoon in the potato.
On the ITV show, Phil spoke about how he had jacket potatoes for dinner regularly as a child. The chef shared his top tips for ensuring crispy skin, and how to reduce the amount of time the oven is on cooking the potato by using a teaspoon, reports The Express.
“A couple of things to remember, yes they do take a bit of energy - and Alice [Beer, consumer editor] has already told me off for cooking them twice. [But] you can microwave them and finish them in the oven for a crispy skin,” Phill said.
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“When you fill them and put them back in the oven, you don’t have to have the oven on, you can finish them under the grill to cut the energy down.
“Now, the thing to say also is - always, always, always use a sharp knife and score the potato around the outside [before you cook it] because they will explode otherwise.
“Sometimes, if you start potatoes in a cooler oven and [the temperature] gets hotter, it bakes the skin so tight they will expand and explode. Not all the time, but it does happen, so I always [score] them.
“I also put a teaspoon in the potato - not when cooking in the microwave - but [cooking the potato in] a conventional oven, it cuts the cooking time down by at least about 20 minutes.”
This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield asked: “Is that because the spoon gets so hot the heat goes down the spoon [handle] and into the centre of the potato?”
“Yes,” Phil replied. “You can use ready-made jacket potato spikes and you put them on all four and into the oven, or you can use a skewer, but it certainly makes a difference."
“So that will take it down from what time to what time?” Phillip asked. The chef revealed: “I reckon it will take 15-20 minutes off the cooking time, so 35-40 minutes as opposed to an hour.”
“Can you do that with anything you put in the oven?” Holly Willoughby asked. “Yes, with root vegetables,” Phil said. “Things like lamb, the bone in the lamb, the heat transfers through the lamb. But metal certainly does.”
Before putting a teaspoon handle into the jacket potato, you can put the potato in the microwave to reduce cooking time further. Remember, no teaspoon in the potato if using the microwave.
Microwaves are the cheapest kitchen appliance to use in terms of energy usage, costing just 1p for three minutes based on the running for a 700W microwave.
Waitrose suggests using both the microwave and oven to cook jacket potatoes, and if done so in conjunction with Phil’s spoon hack, it can take just 20 minutes for a crispy, fluffy jacket potato in the oven.
You can place the potato in the microwave on a plate on hight for three minutes, after turn it over in the microwave for another three minutes. Move the potato onto a baking tray. Season it with salt, pepper and olive oil and then bake for 20 minutes.
If you also push a spoon inside the potato, this will speed up the cooking process in the oven even more. The cooking times are dependent on the size of the potato; a bigger potato takes longer to cook.
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