Maybe it’s the Irish in me, and our love of potatoes – but I think baked potatoes always make such a great winter meal. I usually turn to baked potatoes when I am tired and hungry and want something simple and delicious. Baked potatoes are so versatile and can be served with cheese, bacon, baked beans, leftover chili … in fact almost anything. I wanted to experiment a bit more with the humble baked potato this week, and I decided to make Hasselback potatoes. The idea of the hasselback potato originated in the Hasselbacken hotel in Stockholm. It’s essentially a baked potato with lots of slits so as the potato becomes golden and crisp around the edges. It kind of takes a baked potato to a whole new level of tastiness 🙂 My recipe includes some crème fraiche, bacon, and gruyere cheese, and it really does taste as good as it looks.
Ingredients
- 2 large russet potatoes
- 15g of butter- melted
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 2 slices of bacon, chopped into small strips
- 20g of gruyere cheese, grated
- 50g of crème fraiche
- A few sprigs of fresh thyme
Method
Preheat the oven to 200C/ 400 F. Wash and dry the potatoes. Place the first potato onto a chopping board and place two chopsticks horizontally on either side of the potato. The idea of the chop sticks is that they will prevent your knife slicing right through the potato. Make slices into the potato about an eighth of an inch apart and slice three quarters way through the potato. Once you have cut the slices in the potato, use a pastry brush to distribute the melted butter all over the potato and between the slices. Slice and butter the other potato in the same way, and then place both potatoes onto a baking tray. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle the olive oil on top of the potatoes. Place the potatoes in the oven for about one hour and 45 minutes. This time will depend on the size of your potatoes. The russet potatoes I used were very large and took nearly two hours. If you have smaller potatoes, reduce the cooking time.
While the potatoes are cooking, fry the bacon strips in a frying pan until crisp and golden. Remove from the pan and allow to drain on some kitchen paper
Once the potatoes are cooked, place on a serving dish. Spoon the grated cheese and crème fraiche on top. Finally, scatter the thyme and bacon over the potatoes and serve.
