Baked potatoes

Important steps

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Prep the potato.
   • Wash the outside.
   • Put holes in it with a fork.
   • "Brine" it — Just coat it in salt water. Use ½ cup of water and 2 tbsp salt. [2] [3]
     • (Only brine it at the beginning. Once I tried to brine several times in the middle of cooking, however this just made the potato cool down, and added a ton of steam which made the skin leathery.)
3. Microwave it for 5 minutes. (don't skip this step, otherwise it can take forever to finish cooking)
4. More preparation:
   • Don't wrap it in foil. [2]
   • Put it on a sheet pan with a metal rack.
5. Bake at 450°F. Start checking for doneness after 40 minutes. If using the big oven, it's good to avoid opening the oven more than every 15 minutes, so maybe use an oven probe? Though the air fryer works too.
6. Cook until it has an internal temperature of 205°F.
7. Coat it in oil, add flake salt, and bake for 10 more minutes.
8. Cut the potatoes open immediately after removing from the oven, so steam can escape. [1] [1-archive] [2] But also, first massage the potatoes (archive) to break up the internal "meat", and then squish and pinch it open.

This goes really well with crumbled bacon, as well as compound butter made of garlic and herbs.