The easiest potato recipe has to be without peeling, the quickest way to cook the potato and something that can be the perfect solution to people with a myriad of issues to deal with.
I do eat a lot of potatoes. I LOVE them, but, more importantly, they’re so easy to cook.
So, what could be easier than just chucking a few potatoes into a microwave? If you prick them first, you could do this, but if you want a better result, producing a perfect potato, then this is the way I do it. It produces perfect, cooked, fluffy, potatoes every time:
Easiest Way to Cook Potatoes:
- No peeling – just give your potatoes a rub down with a brush, so the outsides are clean. I use those green abrasive dish washing sponges.
- Just tweak out any bits of the potato that are sprouting, or have dings or dents or black bits obvious (optional), with a small knife.
- Use a microwave steamer (or any other steamer you have) and put boiling water into the base, for mine that’s just 1/2″.
- Place the unpeeled potatoes into the steamer and close the lid.
- Microwave on full power for 10 minutes (800 watt microwave). Check the middles are cooked by sticking a knife in.
- Remove the potatoes from the steamer and you can peel off the skins using a knife and fork, or just picking at it with your fingers (I find this takes longer). Most of the skins will simply peel away. I use a knife and fork as the potatoes are hot and I can peel them quicker that way.
- Serve the potatoes as they are, as boiled potatoes, or mash them up to make mashed potatoes (with or without a knob of butter).
This photo shows my potatoes after I’d mashed the first few as I was peeling them – then realised you might like to see how “whole” they emerge from the skins. I wasn’t trying to be neat/tidy when I did it, so this is a poor representation of the results really 🙂 Sorry… I was thinking about me and my food when I was scraping the skins off the potatoes!
Notes:
This works best with floury potatoes, the potatoes in the photo are Maris Piper potatoes. How the potatoes behave will depend on the type of potato you use and the power of your microwave. This method does work, but you will have to adjust the timing a little for the potatoes you use and how you want them to turn out.
I knew I was mashing my potatoes when I started, so was a little “heavy handed” and fast at taking the skins off as I didn’t have to keep them “looking nice” as they weren’t going to go onto the plate as boiled potatoes.