Baked, mashed, roasted, fried, and gratin.
Master these five dishes, and you've mastered the potato.
Our first method is the humble baked potato.
To make these, I'll add some salt and warm water to a bowl and stir to combine.
Then we top it off with more water.
Poke each potato a few times with a fork, so it doesn't explode while it cooks, and then dump them one by one into the saltwater brine to make sure they're fully coated.
For each method, by the way, we're using a specific type of potato.
And here, we've got russet potatoes.
These are great for baked potatoes, because they have the highest starch content and lowest moisture, which is what gives us that nice light and fluffy baked potato.
This salt brine is also a great trick, because it gives a fully even coat of salt across the potato, so that as it cooks and the water dries off, you get a nice salt crust.
