This recipe came from my wife’s cousin, Heather. It’s a really easy way to add a ton of flavor to plain-old baked potatoes. And once you’ve done it, you’ll start thinking of all kinds of ways to change it up to match whatever you’re going to serve it with.
Ingredients
baking potatoes
Italian dressing
grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Directions
Slice the potatoes almost all the way through into half-inch slices. Leave them connected just enough that you can fan out the slices.
Brush the potato all over with the dressing. Make sure you get down in between the slices.
I’m using the zesty Italian vinaigrette. You can do this same preparation with plain olive oil. I have, and most of the oil runs off before the potato browns up very much. The vinaigrette sticks around much better.
Bake at 400° for 40-50 minutes, until a sharp knife goes through the thickest slice without resistance.
Sprinkle the top with grated cheese. It doesn’t have to be Parmigiano Reggiano, but something hard like Romano or Parmesan is better than a soft cheese like cheddar or mozzarella.
Return to the oven, or place under the broiler, until the cheese is melted.
And that’s it.
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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13 Comments
I knew I’d seen this before… the slice concept, that is… All Recipes has this but is titled Hasselback Potatoes. That recipe calls for butter, salt & pepper, Romano cheese and seasoned breadcrumbs.
I’ve done a version of these before, but just with olive oil, salt and pepper, bacon bits and cheddar. I wasn’t real happy with it, which is why it didn’t show up on the blog. So yeah, this isn’t a completely new idea. It’s good, though.
One thing you can do to prevent cutting all the way through is to put your potato onto the bowl of a wooden spoon and cut that way. The spoon stops you from cutting all the way through. These look delicious Drew!
Hi Drew! Those potatoes are making me real hungry.
Umm… Razorback is the name of a rock band over here in the Philippines. *runs away* ^_^”
Seriously, I knew this recipe would fail, but I experimented with one potato.
Total fail.
The cheese sits on top, the potato itself is hard and tastes like Italian dressing.
Fix: scrub and simmer whole potatoes for about 20 – 30 minutes. Remove from water, drain, cool to touch. Slice as instructed and let steam evaporate while you form a 12 inch dense log of aluminum foil and run it down the middle of a baking sheet, lengthwise.
Arch the potatoes, skin side down, over the log of foil, thus fanning them.
Then dress with a homemade vinaigrette. Bake at 450 for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle on cheese and bake for another 10 minutes.
Serve.
I’m wondering why you come to this blog since you obviously don’t have a good attitude towards it’s author or recipes. Don’t you have better things to do with your time? Or is being mean to people what you do for fun?
Aside from which, my “grandmother” would have never used “Italian dressing.” I like this site overall, but the author poses as an old-school expert — while mostly, he seems to be learning on the job.
Sorry. There are more trustworthy recipes out there.
Maybe you didn’t notice that the words “Italian dressing” in the ingredients were a link to the recipe for the home-made vinaigrette that I posted two days before. Is vinaigrette acceptable to you? Oh, I see that you also used a home-made vinaigrette. So you agree with me, thanks.
And maybe you didn’t see where I wrote “until a sharp knife goes through the thickest slice without resistance”. Cooking time is always an estimate. It’s done when it’s done, not when the timer goes off.
And I’m not sure I understand your complaint that the potatoes tasted like Italian dressing. That’s why you put it on.
As for the cheese sitting on top, I guess that’s a matter of personal preference. When I did these with cheddar, it melted abruptly and lots of it ran down onto the baking sheet before I could get them out of the oven. That’s why I recommended a hard cheese, specifically so that it would stay on top.
Finally, as for “learning on the job”, after posting nearly 400 recipes I’ve already done most of the things that I have a lot of practice at. So yes, most recipes now are the first time I’m making something. Because I use simple foods and focus on repeatable techniques they usually come out pretty much how I intended. And if they don’t, I point that out myself and come back with an update when I do them again.
If you have a repertoire of over 400 recipes that you’ve done multiple times, and you’d like to share them with the world, I’d love a link to your blog so I can learn more from you.
Well said, Drew.
I love this blog (love it – thanks!) and have been following it for a while but just wanted to say:
Opinion – I don’t think anyone’s ‘posing’ as an expert, and all recipes are experiments.
Tip – if you put a wooden spoon on each side of the potato, you will cut to the same depth on each slice, and won’t run the risk of accidentally cutting all the way through.
Trivia – my family have always called them hedgehog potatoes!
The spoon trick is good, I’ll remember that for next time.
i came across your site randomly while googling a recipe. i love it! i first started cooking from scratch many years ago when we moved to china and fresh food was all we could get. what a good thing for me! after all these years of eating real food, i don’t like the flavor of processed foods; they all taste fake or chemically to me. so, i’ll be back. i’m gonna try your brownies and nacho cheese sauce. smiles!
So glad I found this recipe! My husband and I saw something like these on TV a while back and both wanted to try them, but quickly forgot about it.
I found this page from a search for “Razorback” while planning a game day party. We’re grilling brats, so these will be the perfect side for our Hog fans! WPS!