Kumpir

The inside is mashed with butter and cheese inside its own skin, to a smooth paste, before anything else is added.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains a sausage whose meat the source does not name, cheese whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

the potatoes

• 4 very large baking potatoes
• coarse salt, for the skins
• 120 g butter
• 200 g kaşar or mild hard cheese, grated
• salt

the toppings, a few of

• sweetcorn
• cooked peas
• pickled gherkins, chopped
• olives, sliced
• Russian salad
• sausage, sliced and fried
• ketchup and mayonnaise

Method

1. THE INSIDE IS MASHED WITH BUTTER AND CHEESE INSIDE ITS OWN SKIN, TO A SMOOTH PASTE, BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS ADDED. This is the step that makes it this dish and not a jacket potato. The baked potato is split along the top and the flesh is worked with two forks or a spoon, in the skin, with a great deal of butter and grated cheese -- worked hard and for a minute or two, until the inside is one smooth, elastic, pale yellow paste with no lumps and no distinguishable potato. Only then do the toppings go on. A jacket potato with butter and cheese put on top has the same ingredients and is a completely different thing to eat: there, each mouthful is potato OR filling; here the base is a uniform savoury paste that everything else sits on.
2. THE SKIN MUST NOT BE BROKEN WHILE MASHING. It is the bowl. Split along the top only, and the forks worked within it, pressing down and inward rather than levering against the sides. A split skin loses the paste onto the plate and there is no fixing it.
3. THE POTATOES ARE BAKED DRY AND RUBBED WITH COARSE SALT, NOT FOIL-WRAPPED. Pricked, rubbed with a little oil and coarse salt, and baked directly on a rack at 200°C for about an hour and a half. The skin needs to be tough and leathery to survive the mashing. Wrapped in foil they steam and the skin is soft and tears at the first press.
4. THEY HAVE TO BE GENUINELY LARGE AND FLOURY. The biggest baking potatoes available. A waxy or small potato will not mash to a paste -- it goes gluey and slips rather than creaming -- and a small one has not enough flesh to carry the butter.
5. THE BUTTER IS THIRTY GRAMS A POTATO AND GOES IN WHILE IT IS STRAIGHT FROM THE OVEN. The heat is what melts it into the flesh and lets the mash come together smooth. A potato that has sat and cooled will not take it, and the paste stays grainy.
6. THE TOPPINGS ARE PILED ON COLD AND NOT MIXED IN. Several of them, in distinct heaps on the surface. Stirred into the paste they would disappear into it; the whole look of the thing is a smooth yellow base loaded with separate coloured piles.
7. The potatoes pricked, rubbed with oil and COARSE SALT, and baked directly on a rack at 200°C for 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES. NOT wrapped in foil.
8. TESTED: the skin should be leathery and tough and a skewer should slide through the middle easily.
9. STRAIGHT FROM THE OVEN, each SPLIT ALONG THE TOP ONLY.
10. 30 g of butter and a quarter of the grated cheese added to each.
11. MASHED WITH TWO FORKS INSIDE THE SKIN, pressing down and inward, 1 to 2 MINUTES, until the inside is ONE SMOOTH ELASTIC PASTE with no lumps.
12. Salted and tasted.
13. The toppings piled on COLD in separate heaps, not mixed in.
14. TESTED: the base should be a uniform pale yellow paste. Visible lumps of potato mean it was not worked long enough, or had cooled.
15. Eaten at once with a fork.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes