King Charles is passionate about organic produce and grows a lot at his royal residences, including the star ingredient in one of the most comforting dishes. It’s easily overlooked but so many meals are made better by adding a potato element and a baked potato can be both a side and a main.
There’s nothing like tucking into a steaming jacket potato on a cold day and His Majesty has perfected his recipe through “trial and error”. During a walk at Highgrove in the newly-released Amazon Prime Video documentary, Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision, the King spoke about the key element a “decent baked potato” has to have.
“If you want to get decent baked potatoes – which I love – you’ve got to get the crispy skins,” he said. “So the red Duke of Yorks are really good, we’ve discovered, again through trial and error.”
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Duke of York potatoes are a heritage variety that was first bred in 1891 and are known for their rich flavour. King Charles has clearly sampled a fair amount of different varieties baked to find his ideal jacket potato and I couldn’t agree with him more about the need for a crispy skin.
His use of “we’ve discovered” could mean either he’s cooking the baked potato, or is just involved in the potato selecting process. I like to think that His Majesty might occasionally make them at Clarence House or Highgrove House and we know that Queen Camilla still cooks for herself on occasion too – though baked potatoes aren’t her forte…
Speaking to her son Tom Parker Bowles for an interview in You magazine in 2022, the Queen said she could “fill a book” with her cooking “disasters”. She added, “I’m not a natural baker, to say the least. As for baked potatoes… Many a poor, incinerated specimen has been found in the bottom of the Aga, put in, then forgotten about.”
(Image credit: Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)
There’s crispy skin and then there’s “incinerated” and it’s likely that King Charles or their chefs take charge of the Duke of York baked potatoes rather than leaving it to her. Queen Camilla prefers to cook “simple things like fish en papillote with butter and herbs.”
“And vegetables from the garden: kale, purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, courgettes, and lots of peas and beans because they freeze so well,” she added.
The King and Queen are known to have a bit of rivalry over the produce they grow in the garden and Queen Camilla is always “very proud” of her white peaches. She called her husband an “excellent gardener”, explaining that they’re “quite competitive about [their] fruit and vegetables”.
(Image credit: Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
As well as all their other vegetables and baked potatoes, King Charles is also partial to a roast potato and has his own specific way of cooking them too. In November 2022 he visited Morrisons HQ in Bradford and toured the supermarket aisles and development kitchen.
He was presented with an “irresistible” smelling roast rib of beef and revealed that he likes it when roast potatoes are cooked in the fat from the joint rather than in oil. This will add loads of flavour and although the royals enjoy both roasties and mash with their roast dinners, I’d personally be more excited to try the latter.
