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Potatoes with Bay Leaves

Amazing how minor touches in familiar dishes can make such a huge difference. Anyone who grew up eating baked potatoes with butter and sour cream will be pleased and surprised at how aromatic and delicate these are.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    makes 4 servings

Ingredients

4 baking potatoes
Salt and black pepper to taste
8 bay leaves
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil or melted butter

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Preheat the oven to 400°F. Make a deep slit lengthwise in each potato, almost to the point of cutting it in half. Sprinkle salt and pepper in there and tuck in the bay leaves, 2 per potato. Put the potatoes in a baking dish and drizzle with the olive oil, smearing some on the insides as well as making sure the outsides are well coated. Push the potato halves back together and sprinkle their outsides with salt and pepper.

    Step 2

    Bake for about an hour; the potatoes are done when you can easily poke a thin-bladed knife right through them. Serve immediately.

The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved. MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.
TagsPotatoRoot VegetableVegetableSideDinnerDairy FreeNut FreeVegetarianVeganQuickEasyOven BakeCookbooks
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