This is a recipe from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall‘s wonderful cookery book River Cottage Veg Every Day!, which I tweaked a tiny bit. It’s a fab cheesy and very filling jacket potato supper, quick and easy to make.

Twice baked jacket potatoes.

I baked some medium sized spuds, whole and unpricked, for about an hour at 200 degrees C / 400 degrees F / gas mark 6.

Grated cheddar, soured cream, spring onions and chives.

In the meantime I mixed together a load of grated tangy mature cheddar (we love Keen’s, made nearby in Wincanton, Somerset, mostly because it is one of the best farmhouse cheddars out there, and partly because Chap is friends with the maker and truckles have been bought at the pub for mates’ rates ….), the best part of a pot of soured cream I had left over from another recipe that only called for a dollop; all the spring onions (scallions to USians) I could find in the veg drawer, chopped roughly, and a massive handful of chives, also chopped roughly. Plus loads of freshly ground pepper (no salt because the cheese is plenty salty already).

When the spuds are cooked (poke ’em with a skewer to test), cut them in half lengthways, and scoop out the centre. Mix this with the cheesy filling and put back in to the potato shells.

Ready to go back in the oven.

Cook for another 10-15 minutes, until as browned as you like them.

Hugh also adds butter to the mix, but I thought that would be dairy overkill, considering all the cheese and cream in there already …  He also recommends crisping off the shells in the oven for 10 mins before putting the filling in, which I did, but in my opinion this made them a bit too tough and dried out. So I’ll omit that step the next time. I added shedloads of chives, which his recipe doesn’t use, because we love them and we have three very large and healthy plants in a pot just outside the back door.

Hugh’s recipe can be found here in The Guardian: scroll right down as it’s the last one on the page.