Tausi Insider

Photo : Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Sliders, cupcakes, petite quiche, and pigs ‘n blankets have something in common: They were all mad ideas, miniaturized food favorites that quickly became the greatest party food of our time. Now the baked potato wants in on the appetizer action. Make it mini, pop it on a skewer, and you’ve got a new classic party snack. I fully dislike regular baked potatoes. No matter how you flavor and prepare the skin, the average baked potato is a balloon of unflavored potato inside. Then you need a plate to dissect it and dump condiments inside, most of which will remain cold. It’s cumbersome, requires sitting, utensils, and focus—c ertainly not party food (and it remains a mystery to me why it’s fun at all). The mini baked potato corrects all of these issues. Baby potatoes are about an inch across, so added flavor on the outside actually works for the entire thing. They’re on a stick so you can grab it, walk, and mingle with friends at the party. Everything ...

Photo : Claire Lower If you ordered a “baked potato” at a restaurant and were served a Yukon Gold, you’ d probably be a little confused. Baked potatoes— “jacket potatoes” in the UK —are canonically Russets. B ut sometimes canon is worth fucking with. Russet potatoes, with their thick skins and starchy insides, are the standard for baked potatoes. The tough skins get crisp , and the fluffy, sightly arid interiors beg for butter and sour cream. Yukons, on the other hand, have skins that are thin enough to blend into a mash, and creamy innards that are slightly sweeter than their larger, tougher counterparts. Baking the thin-skinned yellow potatoes may seem like a fools errand that could lead to burnt exteriors and dry insides, but I’m thrilled to report that isn’t the case. Yukons are incredible when baked low and slow. This is not a new strategy. I first heard read about it on Martha Stewart’s Instagram account a couple of years ago. I tried it out immediately, then tried to write ...

I have been eating a lot of baked potatoes lately, mostly Yukons . Like most things that hang out in the oven for a long time, they are hot hot hot when they come out, which makes them hard to cut. But waiting for a hot potato to cool before you load it up with toppings is a bad strategy—you need that heat to melt the butter and cheese. Here’s how to split and load a hot potato without burning your little fingers. Split the potato with a fork, not a knife Knives cut to create slick, smooth surfaces, which is not what you want when loading a baked potato. (The butter will slide right off.) You want the inside of your spud to be craggy and fluffy, so the butter can seep into the crevices. To achieve this, repeatedly stab your fork into the top of the spud in a zigzag pattern, then press on the ends to reveal an interior that is ready to receive lots of butter. Don’t burn your little fingers Baked potatoes are best served piping hot, a temperature not known for being kind to the skin...