photo by: John Young

Compound butter-infused Baked Potatoes

Steak night at our house is a big affair and we don’t like to mess around. We want all the sides and fixin’s, and we like to be a little inventive about it so we don’t get bored. Everyone loves a good baked potato, but I’m always looking for ways to make it better, more exciting, and different.

Hasselback potatoes are fun because they create a lot of surface area for crispy goodness and they also happen to look fancy on a plate. For this particular meal, I riffed on them a little. A traditional hasselback would have lots of thin, horizontal slices along the entire “back” of the potato. But for this, I wanted larger spaces because I was going to fill them with compound butter.

So for an average sized potato, I cut about five or six “wedges” out of the top. I wanted to create deep and wide enough spaces to fill with a gooey substance that would make the whole potato infused with buttery goodness.

After cooking, I topped them with a little more of the butter mixture. Crispy, buttery, herby, these are our new favorite thing.

Compound butter-infused Baked Potatoes

6 average sized baking potatoes
1 stick of butter, softened
1/2 cup mayo
2 heaping tablespoons minced fresh chives
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
generous pinch of salt

In advance, if possible, mix up your butter mixture. Mix everything together and put in the fridge or freezer. You don’t want it frozen solid, but firm is good.

Cut thin “wedges” out of the top of the potato, going as deep into the potato as you can without cutting through it. (I saved these and made them into french fries, which were amazing).

With a knife, insert the mayo/butter mixture well into each slice, and don’t worry if it gets all over the top of the potato, that will only add to crunchy and delicious skin.

Bake the potatoes at 425 for about 45 minutes. They need to bake inside a glass baking dish so it catches the butter as it melts. Your potatoes will then reap the benefit of the butter that spills out as well as the butter that stays inside. And you won’t have a smoky mess all over your stove’s heating element.

I slathered a little more of the butter/mayo mix on top before serving. No, this is not particularly healthy food. It’s a treat, and it’s special. And we only have steak night once a month.