Beefy English Jacket Potatoes Recipe

There's no arguing with a good jacket potato. Baked right, the inside turns soft and fluffy, and the skin turns to a crispy "jacket" that adds a salty crunch to every forkful. And while the classic baked potato accoutrements are well and good, the Brits have their own take on what belongs on a potato. In this recipe we won't encourage you to follow British protocol and top your baked potato with beans, however. No, we've got something much better: beef and gravy.

You can think of this beefy English jacket potato recipe, brought to us by developer A.J. Forget, like an inside-out cottage pie. Instead of hiding the beef, vegetables, and gravy underneath a layer of mash, here we're using them to top a steaming jacket potato. It has all those same warm, comforting flavors, with fewer steps required of you. As an added bonus, because the potatoes aren't mashed, you're cutting out all of the extra butter and sour cream or milk go into making mash.

It isn't the fastest recipe around, as baking potatoes to perfection requires a bit of time, but the time you actually spend at the stove is pretty short. Most of the cooking time you are just letting the potatoes do their thing, while the oven warms the house and you enjoy a glass of wine or a pint of bitter beer.

For this recipe you will need russet potatoes, salt, ground beef, onion, rosemary, flour, dark beer, beef broth, frozen peas and carrots, Worcestershire sauce, and sour cream. Once you have these ingredients together, you are ready to start cooking.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Wash the potatoes and slice a cross around ½-inch deep into the tops of the potatoes.

Rub the potatoes with salt and place them in the oven on a baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until softened throughout.

After around an hour has passed, bring a large pan to medium heat and add the beef, cooking and breaking it apart for 4 minutes.

Add the diced onion and rosemary to the pan and cook for another 5 minutes.

Mix the flour into the pan and allow it to cook for 2 minutes, or until it begins to brown.

Stir in the beer and broth, scraping up and fond from the bottom of the pan, and allow to cook for 5 minutes.

Mix in the peas and carrots and cook for 5 minutes more.

Remove from heat, stir in the Worcestershire sauce and sour cream, and add salt to taste.

Remove the potatoes from the oven, split them down the middle, and ladle the beef and gravy into the center of the potatoes. Serve immediately.

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As it turns out, just about anything you cook in gravy comes out tasting delicious. It's the secret of a good cottage pie recipe — which was, of course, the inspiration for these beefy English jacket potatoes. Given the foolproof formula, there's plenty of room to play with the protein and the vegetables, or just throw in some extra toppings to add another layer of pizzazz.

For the protein, feel free to take your inspiration from shepherd's pie rather than cottage pie, and substitute ground lamb for the beef. Or, for a lighter option, trade the beef out for ground turkey.

Peas and carrots are very traditional English vegetables that are also typical ingredients in a cottage pie, but there is no reason that you need to stop at just those. Celery, corn, mushrooms, and green beans are all common additions that also fit perfectly here, if you want to up the veggie content in this recipe.

As for adding some decadence, you can never go wrong with throwing some cheese on a jacket potato. You can simply sprinkle some grated English cheddar over the warm gravy, or go the extra mile and toss the whole thing under the broiler for a minute to get things really melty and delicious. Or add some chopped chives for a pop of color and allium aroma.

Worcestershire sauce is one of those ingredients that you buy a bottle of to cook one particular recipe, probably using just a few teaspoons — as in this recipe — and then it sits in your pantry for ages. Maybe you someday toss it (Worcestershire does technically go bad eventually) and as soon as it's gone, you find another recipe that needs a dash. In the worst case scenario, you are sure that you still have some hanging about, only to get home with the rest of the groceries and realize that the bottle was lost to a pantry purge. Fortunately, while nothing quite matches its unique flavor, you don't need to run back to the store, as there are plenty of substitutes that will work in a pinch.

Recipes vary somewhat, but the basis of Worcestershire sauce is fermented oily fish, such as anchovies and mackerel, along with vinegar, molasses, tamarind, and spices. The flavor is salty, tangy, sweet, aromatic, and packed with umami. For a simpler version that carries the same basic flavors, try a mixture of three parts soy sauce to one part balsamic vinegar. The soy gives you the salt and umami, while the balsamic provides a touch of sweetness and acidity. It lacks the complexity of Worcestershire, but it will get the job done.

Alternatively, plain soy sauce can be swapped for Worcestershire without losing too much. Other options like tamari, fish sauce, and Maggi seasoning work as well, especially if you also add a touch of whatever vinegar you have on hand.

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