Salt Baked Potatoes with Roasted Garlic & Rosemary

By AzWench

I love me a baked potato. Crispy skin, tender, fluffy insides, what’s not to love?
I will tell you what’s not to love: a gummy, dense, yucky baked potato.
I’ve always subscribed to the rub-’em-down-with-shortening-and-bake-at-400-until-done method, but I recently saw this method in my copy of America’s Test Kitchen Best Recipes and Reviews 2013 and I was intrigued. I immediately thought of the baked potatoes from Outback (say what you will, haters, those things are good!)

Ingredients

• 4 medium russet potatoes, washed and patted dry
• 2 1/2 cups kosher salt
• 1 head garlic, the top sliced off
• 2 sprigs rosemary, plus 1/4 teaspoon chopped rosemary
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• 4 tablespoons butter

Details

Adapted from ourbestbites.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 450. Place the salt in a 9×13″ pan. Press the potatoes down into the salt, making sure they’re not touching. Add the sprigs of rosemary and the head of garlic, cut side up. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.

When the potatoes have baked for 1 hour, remove the pan from the oven and remove the head of garlic. Turn the oven to 500. Brush each potato with 1 teaspoon olive oil and return to the hot oven, uncovered. Bake for an additional 15 minutes.

While the potatoes are baking, combine the butter, 1/4 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary, and then squeeze out the whole head of garlic into the butter and stir to combine. Serve the hot potatoes with the rosemary butter (although if you’d rather serve it with more traditional toppings, you can omit the garlic/rosemary step altogether).