A flight of jacket potatoes are the perfect food for a low-stress gathering | Canada Voices

There’s something thrilling about being presented with a flight of things – a lineup of beers or wines, or even devilled eggs, as became a thing on TikTok earlier this summer, to taste your way through.

Ordering a flight generally happens when you’re out with friends – it conjures the image of a social atmosphere, and requires a strategic approach: Do you start at one end and work your way through? Or go dark to light? A flight generates conversation about preferred flavours, textures and aromas, which is fascinating because we all experience taste and flavour differently.

While it can be costly to do beer/wine/spirit-based flights at home, it’s perfect to do with food. Devilled eggs are fitting as they tend to show up at social gatherings, perfectly portioned so you and your guests can taste several – offering several flavour combinations somehow makes it more acceptable to down half a dozen on your own. Try straying from the usual mayo and paprika and mash the yolks with ingredients you like, perhaps some caramelized onions or kimchi, and adding contrast on top in the form of crushed chips, mustard sprouts or chili crisp. (Alice Choi, known on TikTok as Hip Foodie Mom, posted about devilled egg flights back in 2022, but as social-media trends tend to go, their popularity surged again earlier this summer.)

Stuffed baked potatoes work well, too, and can be a fun, affordable way to feed friends, or just clean out your fridge. Leftovers in any form, in any quantity, can be resurrected with the help of a humble potato. I’m a particular fan of saucy curries and stews, particularly when there isn’t enough for a meal on its own. A potato can also be called into service when you have wrinkly veggies to sauté, or bits of leftover salad. (Mashing some leftover Caesar salad into some warm baked potato is delicious – truly.)

I like to call them jacket potatoes, a U.K. term for a baked potato, which is believed to have originated in Peru. Whatever you call them, the first step is the baking: wash your potatoes and rub with any kind of fat – vegetable oil or butter – and sprinkle with salt, if you like. Potato skins are delicious and nutrient-dense (it contains much of the potato’s fibre, potassium and vitamin C), and not something to be discarded after eating the innards.

One of the many appealing things about a baked potato is they take up very little oven space, so you can tuck them in, directly on the oven rack, around whatever else you happen to be baking. Or bake up to a few at a time in an air fryer, which is really just a tiny convection oven. Smaller russet or Yukon Gold potatoes are ideal if you’re turning them into a flight.

Once they’re crispy on the outside, fluffy within, you can stab them down the middle with a fork to split open and smother with saucy beans or stews or curries. Or slice a bit off the top, spoon out the innards and mash them with butter and caramelized onions, mushrooms, leftover roasted squash or anything else you can scrounge from your fridge, then top with grated Parm or other appropriate cheese and give it another minute or two in the oven to help it melt.

You can also spoon out the cooked potato and sauté it. I’ve done this with chaat masala along with a few frozen peas, then piled it back into the potato shell and topped it with a bit of diced tomato, sev or Bombay mix and coriander and/or tamarind chutney.

Recipe: Stuffed or Twice-baked Jacket Potatoes

Small russet or Yukon Gold potatoes to feed as many as you like

Bake potatoes at around 350˚F for 30 minutes for smaller potatoes to an hour for larger ones, depending on the size and shape of your potato. Add any combination of toppings such as those below and shown here.

Mushroom: sauté chopped or sliced mushrooms in butter, oil or ghee, with garlic and/or finely chopped rosemary or anything else you like. Once golden, finish with a pour of cream, if you like, and mash into the scooped-out potato innards with salt and pepper. Return to the potato and top with some grated Parm or other cheese, if desired, and return to the oven or run under the broiler for a minute or two to melt.

French onion soup: thinly slice and caramelize onions in oil, butter or ghee until dark golden, seasoning with a bit of salt adding a sprig of thyme and/or a splash of optional balsamic vinegar at the end. Mash into scooped-out baked potato innards, return to the potato shell, top with grated gruyere or other intensely flavoured cheese, such as extra-old cheddar or Parmesan, and return to the oven or run under the broiler to melt.

Aloo chaat: spoon the innards out of a baked potato and sauté it in chunks in oil, butter or ghee, along with a few frozen peas, sprinkling with chaat masala and salt. Return to the potato shell and top with some finely chopped tomato (I use a cherry tomato or two per potato), some purple onion or shallot, and some sev or Bombay mix. Serve with tamarind and/or coriander chutney.

Tadka bean: heat cumin seeds, mustard seed, turmeric and garam masala – or your favourite curry spice blend – in oil or ghee, along with a bit of chopped jalapeño or other chili, if you like. Add a can of baked beans and warm them through, then spoon over a split baked potato. As an option, top with cilantro.

Caesar: start with leftover Caesar salad, or finely shred romaine lettuce and toss with your choice of dressing and some grated Parmesan cheese. Mash into scooped-out baked potato innards and return to the potato, top with more Parm and perhaps a few croutons, if you have them.