How many times have you been served baked potatoes or have baked potatoes yourself wrapped in aluminum foil? This recipe from Cee Dub’s days patrolling Middle Fork of Salmon River in Central Idaho makes the best baked potatoes ever plus saves a lot of time and aluminum foil!
Cee Dub considers himself a member of the “meat and potatoes” generation having grown up in a working class family in SE Idaho and also having worked on several large potato farms in the 1960’s and ’70’s. Cee Dub and his sisters often gleaned potatoes, aka spuds, from harvested fields near their homes to help supplement the family food budget. To say potatoes were a staple food of the Welch family would be an understatement.
Anyway…watch while Cee Dub shows you a quick easy method of baking potatoes in your Dutch oven. Though not mentioned in the video Cee Dub recommends using Idaho Russet Potatoes for baking because it is this particular variety that made Idaho famous for it’s potatoes. Start by washing and drying the potatoes. Then, coat the skins with a little olive oil and place in your 12″ Dutch oven on a wire cake rack. Add water up to the bottom of the wire rack and bake for about an hour with 8-10 briquets underneath and about 18 to 22 on top.
For added flavor sprinkle the potatoes with sea salt after oiling the skins. And…the next time you bake potatoes at home try prepping them just like Cee Dub and place them on the oven rack for about 50 minutes at 365 degrees. Not wrapping them in foil not only saves aluminum but cuts your prep time substantially.