It's time for the next round of Chef Troll's Culinary Throwdown and our hostess for this challenge is the fabulous La Diva Cucina.
And the mystery ingredient for this challenge? SALT.
This being a challenge and all she states that she's "NOT talkin' bout just adding plain old Morton's iodized salt in your stew and calling that a challenge!"
After my absolute disaster of an entry in the last challenge I really wanted to create something we could eat. It's not about winning but I hate throwing food away and even the dogs wouldn't eat our Yard Smoked Chicken.
So I did a little research and found that you can bake potatoes in salt.
I had no idea.
Because of the chicken that went into the trash last time I decided to try this on just one potato.
The ingredients were simple. Salt, an egg and a potato.
I washed the potato and then pricked several holes in it.
Mixed the egg white with a tablespoon of water and then beat until frothy.
Rolled the potato around in the egg until it was completely covered
And then started covering the potato with salt.
We caked a thick layer of salt all over the potato
And then put it in a foil lined baking dish.
Because I wanted to be able to compare this potato to a regular baked one I wrapped a second one in foil and put it in the oven at the same time.
I baked the potatoes in a 400 degree oven for an hour and 15 minutes.
To check for doneness I slid a knife into the salted potato and took it out of the oven when the potato felt soft.
The salt was cooked onto the skin
So when I cut the potato open very little went into the potato.
Because of the salt I removed the potato from the skin, added a little butter, sour cream and pepper and TA-DA - Salt Baked Potato.
It was really good. Light and fluffy with no salty taste at all.
I did the same thing to the foil baked potato and called the family in for a taste test.
And no one could tell a difference. They were both good.
The biggest drawback to the salt method is that you can't eat the skin. And I used a LOT of salt.
I don't think I'll be baking my potatoes this way again but it was fun to try something new and I'm really pleased that we were able to eat it.
Now head over to La Diva's place and see what wonderful creations everyone else came up with.Labels: Staying
