Ken Knecht wrote on 29 Dec 2006 in rec.food.cooking

> Anyone have a good method of making 'baked' potatoes in the microwave
> that taste like potatoes baked in a regular oven?
>
> TIA
>

There is no recipe...The best Baked potatoes are made by
washing/scrubbing the spuds well, drying them...rubbing the skin with a
little oil and sprinkling them lightly with salt, forking them to allow
for venting (no exploding potatoes that way) and baking for approx 1 hr
at 400F plus.

The best you can do with a microwave is make steamed potatoes in their
jackets. Which is ok... but don't get me wrong...it ain't a baked spud.

Some time can be saved though...by nuking the potatoes for say 5
minutes...while the oven comes to temp. This can save you 20 minutes
maybe.

These are 2 totally diffent cooking methods...oven cooking allows some of
the moisture to evaporate away...the microwave doesn't. Is the easiest
way to explain it.

The foiled wrapped method is just a restaurant method of allowing the
potatoes to be eatable after many hours...as they don't cook them to
order but do many potatoes at opening time to last throughout the night.

The true baked potato with a nice crisp skin means allowing it to bake
till the skin makes a russeling noise when handled.

With a tougher crisper skin... twice baked potatoes are a possibility...
Scoop out the potato innards...taking care not to puncture the skin.
Coarsely mash...Mix these innards with butter, cheese , cooked crumbled
bacon, chives, chopped cooked mushrooms or what ever...Place back in the
skins and bake till the cheese melts and the potatoes firm up a bit.