Twice-Baked Potatoes with Basil and Sour Cream

Like many of you, I am spending much of my cooking week looking at far more vegetables than normal, thanks to a CSA share. I must confess that sometimes I just take the simplest route possible and go for a little saute in olive oil, but last night I was determined to MAKE something, many things actually, and to have at least one of those things be a NEW Gourmet recipe that I could write about here.

With that in mind, I give you Twice-Baked Potatoes with Basil and Sour Cream.

Actually, it should be thrice-baked potatoes! And before I dive into this recipe I'm going to wonder out loud, once again, why most of the potato recipes in this book call for russets. If you don't know the difference between baking and boiling potatoes, it's all about the starch content--boiling potatoes have less, baking potatoes have more. This makes a difference in many things, from texture to whether or not they hold together in soup, to how they crisp up.

So you would think that a twice-baked potato recipe would call for a baking potato, right? Wrong. For whatever reason, this one calls for Yukon Gold--I think mostly because of their relatively smaller size.

Well, I had a bag full of dirt-covered Yukon Golds to cook up, so Twice-Baked Yukon Golds it was, starch (or lack thereof) be damned.

The first step is easy. Bake your potatoes! Prick them with a fork, and bake in a 400 oven for an hour. No problem.

The next one--scoop out the potato flesh (once they're cool enough to handle), mash with butter, add milk and salt and pepper and some chopped fresh basil. Roger!

The next one (and this is an unusual step and one that makes this recipe extra yummy), brush the potato shells with butter, and put them back in your 400 oven for 20 minutes to get crispy. Got it.

Then, put your filling in the crispy shells, and bake for an additional 10 minutes to get everybody all up to the same temperature.

Garnish with sour cream (you were wondering when the sour cream comes in, weren't you?) and additional chopped basil.

Hey people--if you're baking these with those little bitty Yukon Golds I'm just telling you in advance that it is almost impossible not to pop them, whole, into your mouth. Before they get to the table. So make a lot. Fair warning!