Charcuterie Recipes

Salt baked potatoes with ‘nduja butter

This is what they call a quick win. It’s a bit unusual, works midweek or as a dinner party side, and it looks a lot cleverer than it really is. This is a combination of two recipes, both of which have only a couple of steps, and a couple of ingredients. Both of which can be prepared largely in advance, and take only a few minutes.

The result is magic. Crack open the crust of the potatoes and you’ll encounter the meltingly soft, perfectly seasoned flesh of the potato. While it’s still piping hot, spoon some on to a plate and top with a thin slice of ‘nduja butter. Or if you prefer, spoon the ‘nduja butter straight into the open crust and mix through, then decide whether to spoon the marvellous mixture onto your plate, or straight into your mouth.

To create this recipe, I used the Great British Chefs recipe for salt baked celeriac. It is delicious. You should try it. Why not spoon ‘nduja butter into a celeriac too?

The recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the potatoes

• 825g of plain flour
• 900g of salt
• 13 free-range egg whites
• 450ml of water
• 4 large baking potatoes

For the butter

• 150g butter
• 100g ‘nduja
• 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160℃
2. Allow the butter to come to room temperature
3. Mix the plain flour, salt, egg whites and water together to form a dough like a thick paste.
4. Wash the potatoes.
5. On a baking tray, put a blob of dough down for each potato - these will form the bases.
6. Put a potato on each base and then cover each with dough, moulding the dough around the potatoes to meet the bases. Don’t leave any gaps - you want a complete shell to cook the potatoes.
7. Bake the potatoes for 90 minutes
8. While the potatoes cook, cream together the butter, ‘nduja and parsley. Once mixed, wrap and refrigerate.
9. Use the handle end of a knife to crack open the potato shells in a circle around the top, making a lid you can remove.
10. Spoon out the potato and top with the ‘nduja butter, or spoon ‘nduja butter into the case and mix through the potato, before serving.

Variations

• Not cheesy enough for you eh? Add ricotta to the 'nduja butter mix.
• Can't be bothered salt baking a potato? Fair enough, just bake the potato normally.
• You only eat dirty fries? Fine, throw the baked potato away and put the 'nduja butter (probably with the cheese in it at this point) directly onto the fries.