Baked
Potato
A baked potato, or jacket potato,
is the edible result of baking a potato. When well
cooked, a baked potato has a fluffy interior and
a crisp skin. It may be served with fillings and
condiments such as butter, cheese or ham. Potatoes
can be baked in a conventional gas or electric oven,
a convection oven, a microwave oven, on a barbecue
grill, or on/in an open fire. Some restaurants use
special ovens designed specifically to cook large
numbers of potatoes, then keep them warm and ready
for service.
Prior to cooking, the potato should be scrubbed
clean, washed and dried with eyes and surface blemishes
removed, and possibly basted with oil or butter
and/or salt. Pricking the potato with a fork or
knife allows steam to escape during the cooking
process. Potatoes cooked in a microwave without
pricking the skin might explode due to built up
internal pressure from unvented steam. It takes
between one and two hours to bake a large potato
in a conventional oven at 200 °C (392 °F).
Microwaving takes from six to twelve minutes depending
on oven power and potato size, but does not generally
produce a crisp skin.
Some varieties of potato such as Russet and King
Edward potato are more suitable for baking than
others, due to their size and consistency.
Wrapping the potato in aluminium foil before cooking
in a standard oven will help to retain moisture,
while leaving it unwrapped will result in a crisp
skin. When cooking over an open fire or in the coals
of a barbecue, it may require wrapping in foil to
prevent burning of the skin. A potato buried directly
in coals of a fire cooks very nicely, with a mostly
burned and inedible skin. A baked potato is fully
cooked when its internal temperature reaches 99
°C (210 °F).
Once a potato has been baked, some people discard
the skin and eat only the softer and moister interior,
while others enjoy the taste and texture of the
crisp skin. Potatoes baked in their skins may lose
between 20 to 40% of their vitamin C content because
heating in air is slow and vitamin inactivation
can continue for a long time. Small potatoes bake
more quickly than large ones and therefore retain
more of their vitamin C. Despite the popular misconception
that potatoes are fattening, baked potatoes can
be used as part of a healthy diet.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
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