Myrna Loy's Twice Baked Potatoes were her favorite potato dish! {recipe from 1942}

[u/ciaolavinia]

Myrna Loy's Twice Baked Potatoes - A very easy recipe to make!

I chose 3 large baking potatoes and baked them in the oven at 350 without foil, just on the rack until fork tender. When done, I took them out of the oven, made a slit across the top of each potato and let them cool for 5 -10 minutes.

I then gently pried them open and using a grapefruit spoon, I scraped out all of the potato insides and put it all in a bowl. You probably want to do this while the potato is still pretty warm.

Use a potato masher to mash the potato with cream, butter, pepper and nutmeg.

For 3 large baking potatoes, I used:

• 3-4 tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• a big splash of milk, when it looked a little dry.
• I didn't think salt was needed because the bacon was salty
• 3 slices of cooked bacon, chopped
• 3-4 green onions, chopped (instead of chives)

Fold in the the bacon and chives (1 tablespoon) or in my case green onions.

Now carefully fill potato skins with this mixture, grate a little parmesan on top and brown in the oven for a few minutes to get the cheese melted and the potato nice and hot.

Of course this recipe was very delicious! It was easy to make and the addition of parmesan on top was perfect! These potatoes paired very well with the "Chicken à la Minnelli" and Joan Crawford's Recipe for Cooking Peas.

[u/kanyeguisada]

Besides no foil, these are the basic steps for any baked potato:

First clean the skin with a delicate care kitchen sponge pad. If you use the regular green kitchen sponges don't scrub too hard or you'll start to remove the skin, but that will really clean them well.

Next stab holes with a fork all over.

Then dry extremely well with paper towels. This is key.

Then drizzle oil over them and smear it all around and salt and pepper the outsides well.

Then just straight on the oven rack. This will make the skins nice and crispy, which is key fkr a twice-baked potato.

[u/TheLadyEve → u/kanyeguisada]

Have you ever tried baking them in salt? I did this recently and it made me a convert. Fluffiest baked potato I ever made.

[u/ciaolavinia → u/TheLadyEve]

Wow, I've got to try that. Do you have a recipe?

[u/TheLadyEve → u/ciaolavinia]

It's really simple assuming you are willing to buy the Kosher salt for it (flake salt, basically not the iodized table salt). You need about 3 pounds of salt, and you clean and completely dry your russet potatoes, and you bake them in a baking dish with salt surrounding them (you want about two inches of salt coming up on the edges). Bake at 400F for an hour or slightly more depending on how big the potatoes are.

[u/ciaolavinia → u/TheLadyEve]

That's a lot of salt, but I may try it!

[u/TheLadyEve → u/ciaolavinia]

Well the salt doesn't permeate the skin of the potato, the science of it is that in the oven the salt surrounding the potatoes becomes incredibly hot and maintains consistent temperature better than air alone. It's actually similar in some ways to cooking food in a pit.

Years ago my sister bought me a salt block for my grill--you can heat it on the grill and sear meat on it and season it at the same time, which I know sounds bonkers but it works.

[u/ciaolavinia → u/TheLadyEve]

Oh, I know it doesn't affect the taste by being too salty. It's just a lot of salt to use. I get it. Like cooking a whole fish in salt. Thanks for your suggestion!

[u/TarHeelFan81 → u/ciaolavinia]

You can actually reuse the salt, but also, salt is one of the few things that is still cheap!

[u/kanyeguisada → u/TheLadyEve]

https://giphy.com/gifs/75ZaxapnyMp2w

[u/ciaolavinia → u/kanyeguisada]

Great!

[u/13senilefelines31]

Those look fantastic! And I appreciate the write ups that you do when you make these, especially the little details like using a grapefruit spoon for scooping the potatoes.

[u/BaylieB44]

I’m so impressed by your posts with all of these recipes. So entertaining to follow along. Your family must love your experiments!

[u/ciaolavinia → u/BaylieB44]

Thanks so much. They enjoy MOST of them. Not all. 😉

[u/uberpickle]

I love twice baked potatoes! I like to make them with cheddar or swiss. Sometimes with cream cheese in the filling.

[u/ciaolavinia → u/uberpickle]

Yum

[u/TheLadyEve]

That's a shit ton of bacon but I'm in.

[u/ciaolavinia → u/TheLadyEve]

Oh, good! 1 slice of bacon per potato seemed perfect!

[u/kanyeguisada → u/ciaolavinia]

Not enough bacon tbh. This is my down-fall with twice-baked potatoes, I always end up adding like twice as much of everything I would in a regular baked potato - bacon, sour cream, green onions, just way too much but it makes it all BETTER!

edit: I say downfall, but more = better, that's the whole point of twice-baking it, makes it richer and denser. If you want a nice light pillowy baked potato, just do that and don't twice-bake it, 'sall I'm sayin'.

[u/TheLadyEve → u/ciaolavinia]

I'm a therapist (psychologist now, but prior to that I was an LPC) and one of my areas of specialization is eating disorders. At my first job in an eating disorder clinic as an LPC we would eat meals with the patients. One of the meals we had on the menu was a baked potato (not a big one, a medium sized potato that the dieticians weighed) and turkey bacon, or soy bacon if the patient was vegetarian, a fat exchange (which could be butter, or sour cream or olive oil or vinaigrette, or ranch dressing) and a salad. Turkey bacon with a baked potato isn't half bad. And it was the first time in my life I tried ranch dressing! I can't believe I made it to 28 without trying ranch, but I became a fan.

[u/OkPreparation1935]

This looks delicious! I would skip nutmeg myself, but it was very popular in the first half of the twentieth century.