I have been eating a lot of baked potatoes lately, mostly Yukons. Like most things that hang out in the oven for a long time, they are hot hot hot when they come out, which makes them hard to cut. But waiting for a hot potato to cool before you load it up with toppings is a bad strategy—you need that heat to melt the butter and cheese.
Here’s how to split and load a hot potato without burning your little fingers.
Split the potato with a fork, not a knife
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Knives cut to create slick, smooth surfaces, which is not what you want when loading a baked potato. (The butter will slide right off.) You want the inside of your spud to be craggy and fluffy, so the butter can seep into the crevices. To achieve this, repeatedly stab your fork into the top of the spud in a zigzag pattern, then press on the ends to reveal an interior that is ready to receive lots of butter.
Don’t burn your little fingers
Baked potatoes are best served piping hot, a temperature not known for being kind to the skin. You could use (and dirty) a clean dish towel to gently press on the ends of the spud, or you could use the same kitchen tongs you used to remove the potatoes from the oven. Rather than squish them with the end of the tongs—which can result in a potato explosion—position the spud about halfway up the handle, then apply a gentle squeeze. (But sure, a kitchen towel works pretty well too.)
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Add the cheese before the sour cream
A lot of people fully load their potatoes in the wrong order. They go butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon, and scallion, when they should go butter, cheese, sour cream, bacon, and scallion. This order allows the cheese to melt. So add the first two ingredients, mash everything up a bit, then close the potato and let it all mingle to form an aligot-like base layer of potato magic. Let it sit for a minute or two, then open her up and add your sour cream, bacon bits, and chives or scallions.
Extra credit: Give it a salt crust
Nothing against a naked spud, but why not add a little glitter? Start by giving the potato a rubdown with your favorite fat—I like bacon grease (economical) or duck fat (a bit more pricey). Then, roll it around in a fine or medium-grain salt, and bake as usual to form a sparkly, savory crust.