Growing up in the United States, I ate my fair share of loaded baked potatoes, piled high with melted cheese and crisp bacon — but the “perfect bite” somehow eluded me. Twice-baked potatoes fix that.
Unlike a traditional baked potato, where you must carefully ration a slice of butter between two sides, the twice-baked version mixes the base filling with the potato interior so each bite has a little bit of everything. However, it wasn’t until I added a scoop of glistening ikura (salmon roe) to the dish that I managed to finally get that perfect bite.
Loaded twice-baked ikura potatoes are what happens when you give a Japanese twist to a Western staple. The dish features a wallop of umami that comes from scooping the insides out of the potatoes and mixing them with miso and butter. After that, you can top the finished product off with a generous dollop of sour cream and your choice of fixings. Furikake rice topping, spicy shichimi tōgarashi, scallions and spoonfuls of jewel-like ikura — as any baked potato fan will know, the fixings are always the best part.