Where's my potato jacket?

I’ve always used King Edward’s, especially for roasting or mash. They have been hard to get hold of recently so I mashed some Maris pipers. Awful - they were grainy, tasteless and gloopy. However I do think they are better for baking. I microwave them for 3 minutes then put them into the oven. I don’t eat the skins but do hand them over to DH.

Whitelaw12

I do my jacket potatoes in the air fryer, great result.

So do I. Skin gets crispy and insides lovely and soft. No need to pierce them

Brings back memories of growing up. In the winter it was always Jacket potatoes for Saturday lunch. Proper large potatoes which my mother would put in the oven of the coal fire before she went off to the local market in town. She always came back with home cured bacon from a shop which has survived. She cooked the bacon and we had it with the jacket potatoes , the fat off the bacon poured over the potato

After cutting a cross in my potato (usually Red Rooster) I oil and "scrub" it with salt. Then after microwaving it using the sensor facility I pop the potato into my Mini Airfryer until the skin is crisp and crunchy.

Yes it was ashes of a winter bonfire that I associate with childhood jacket potatoes.

I was thinking exactly the same thing the other day.

I still like baked potatoes, but the skins are definitely not as thick, or tasty, as they used to be.

As for people putting them in the microwave - horrible!

I live in the States and can confirm that they are definitely called Baked Potatoes here. I still call them Jacket Potatoes and all my American friends had never heard of this expression.

My mum used to do them in the oven of a wood-fired Rayburn - they were lovely but our butter was so nice then too.

There's SO many different varieties. Some must be better at being baked than others.
Size (ahem!) does matter, too.

I microwave washed potatoes for 6 minutes rub in salt and oil then put them in the air fryer to crisp up and cook through. I usually batch bake and freeze, they all need to be roughly same size. Eat them several times a week..

Baked potatoes will ALWAYS be baked potatoes. "Jacket" potatoes are ever so twee and dainty. Yuk!

They are Jacket Potatoes to me. I stab them several times, microwave for 5 minutes then bake on 200 for an hour, I like the skin almost black and very, very crunchy, sometimes I just cut them with scissors one I have halved them. Lots of grated cheese and a side salad. My stable diet at least twice a week. Perfect.

The best ones I ever had were white potatoes (King Edwards or Maris Piper) baked in foil, either on top of or inside our log burner. They were always crispy on the outside and fluffy inside.
We also stood the saucepan of baked beans on top of the burner for 10mins so they'd be ready to have with the potatoes. Saved on cooking costs too.

I realise they are now commonly called jacket potatoes but until the late 70's I had not heard this expression. They were always called baked potatoes. I'm 67 and live in the South West if that's relevant. We only ever had them on Bonfire night when they were cooked in the bonfire, retrieved with a stick and slathered in butter. No baked potato since has tasted quite so delicious.

Choose a floury variety, bake it in an oven until its crispy no shortcuts in a microwave, cook it properly.
It doesn’t whether you call it a Jacket or Baked Potato it will taste the same.

In one story I remember, Milly Molly Mandy’s mother cut the tops off a couple of jackets, scooped out all the potato, mashed it with salt, pepper ‘and a lot of butter’, and piled it back in for MMM and Little Friend Susan to eat.
Yum!

I would say yes potatoes are really different these days.

Mainly they are varieties which aren't grown for flavour.

One of the nicer "modern" potatoes is "Alouette". It's a red skin and blight resistant so you can sometimes find an organic one.

Maris Piper and King Edward are still good for baking if it's not been a wet year. You need them to grow big enough but not watery.

We buy a huge 25kg bag of ‘blues’ from a local farmer, stick them in the aga for an hour or so and they come out with extremely crispy skins and a light fluffy potato inside. Lashings of butter is a must…

Which variety of blues do you use Micky?

I’ve never heard of potatoes called “blues” why? Which variety?

Oreo

Drool!
I call them baked potatoes and only see Jacket potatoes on menus, thought it was a US thing.

*#"@&

Definitely not an American thing. Inhave seen a couple of videos by Americans who had never heard the term.

youtu.be/9cKJobC_M2E?si=_oXpzSEbx2bMMduH

Use lard instead of vegetable oil. Butter would probably work too but lard is cheaper.

I think "jacket potatoes" is still a common term in Scotland but I've always known them as baked potatoes which, after all, is what they are.

I was brought up knowing the description jacket potatoes and baked potatoes. I hav a vague idea that jacket potatoes were baked in the bonfire, while baked potatoes went in the oven and were much inferior to the bonfire cooked jacket ptatoes.

Just thought further, I think jacket potatos were wrapped or encased in soil/clay (now a days we would use foil), so that the fire didn't burn them up and it was the outer case of soil/clay that led to them being called 'jacket' potatoes.