Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I fancy myself a potato aficionado; my baking, roasting, and scalloping skills are well honed. But tonight, I’m trying something new.

I’m baking a Russet potato according to the two pages of intense analysis in the current issue of “Cook’s Illustrated.” If you subscribe to this publication, you already know that it takes any food and turns it into a scientific treatise complete with the item’s molecular structure, how it behaves under heat or cold, and the best way to achieve maximum taste. Some of this is more than I want to know.

Still, the potato article piqued my interest.  In a nutshell (which is a confusing idiom when we’re discussing potatoes), the Russet is the baker of choice.  One should not stab it with a knife, microwave it, or use the squeeze approach to check doneness.

Instead, the potato should be pricked gently with a fork, washed in a salt bath, and then put on a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet for maximum air circulation around it. It should bake in a 450 degree oven until a meat thermometer registers precisely 205 degrees.

Next the potato is removed and brushed with oil before returning to the oven for another ten minutes. This is to insure a crispy skin and a fluffy inside. After the potato emerges for the last time, it is immediately – and this is really stressed in the article – slashed open by making a giant X across the top.  Salt and pepper complete the preparations. Butter is deemed unnecessary.

“Cook’s Illustrated” claimed to have baked 200 potatoes in various ways to achieve this final recipe. I, on the other hand, will make just two potatoes tonight and report soon. It is my duty as a self-proclaimed aficionado, because I wasn’t consulted for the article.