By Melissa Clark
- Total Time
- 45 to 90 minutes
- Rating
- 4(124)
- Notes
- Read community notes
You don’t need a real recipe for these potatoes, but you do need a charcoal grill because these ash-baked tubers won’t work with gas. The recipe is a throwback to when clans of kids roamed New York City streets in the early 20th century, building fires in abandoned lots and baking potatoes into the ashes for a hot snack. The potatoes turn so sooty black that it can be hard to tell them apart from the coals, especially in the twilight. The timing of when they will be done will vary depending upon the size of your potatoes and the heat of your fire. Stab them with a skewer to see when they are tender within. To eat, carefully break a potato open and scoop out the smoky, fluffy flesh with a spoon, seasoning it with salt and butter to taste. Or go old-school and wrap the potatoes in a newspaper to protect your fingers before breaking them open and biting the flesh directly from the burned shells.
Featured in: Fire-Roasted Potatoes, Brooklyn Style
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Ingredients
Yield:6 servings
- 6potatoes, any kind (or use as many as you like)
- Butter, for serving
- Salt, for serving
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
176 calories; 2 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 0 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 37 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 2 grams sugars; 4 grams protein; 401 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
Build a large and very hot charcoal fire. Put the potatoes in the fire, burying them completely (you can cook something else on top of the grill as the same time). The potatoes will be done after anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes, so keep checking them by piercing them with a skewer. When they feel soft on the inside, they are done. Let cool slightly before eating.
Step
2
To eat, slice them open and serve with butter and salt on the side for each person to season the potatoes to taste. A spoon is the easiest way to get to the tender potato flesh. Don’t eat the burned shells.
Ratings
4
out of 5
124
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Cooking Notes
Richard
They were called Mickeys in Brooklyn in the 1930s.
Petaltown
We loved ash-roasted potatoes when I was a kid, but I highly recommend this variation on the recipe: wrap them in aluminum foil! Unless you like black, burnt, charred flavor a whole lot. And you can eat that delicious skin.
Laura
Would recommend doing this in chunk charcoal as opposed to briquettes which are bonded together with wax, i.e. chemicals.
jj
I slice them most of the way through and insert onion slices. And wrap the potato in foil, of course. A campground favorite!
VinXpert
BTW...if you wrap these in foil, you are steaming the potatoes rather than roasting them...definitely not the same end result.
Verna Linney
Mickey's was Mom's memory of fire roasted spuds in Jersey City empty lots. Possibly influence of Irish kids in neighborhood of Downtown JCNJ in pre- and post-
WWI era.
Foil wrapped for me in Girl Scout campfires.
Susan B
Make sure to read all of the notes...historical, anthropological, not to mention humorous! I love these notes!
Tom
That carbonized outer eighth to quarter inch of skin/potato is absolutely necessary to impart the unique, wonderful flavor to the interior, edible part. Otherwise, it's just a plain old oven baked spud!
Paul McDonnell, NYC
My father was born in 1916 in a house that literally straddled the Brooklyn-Queens border, and he described this ash-potato thing as a joy of his childhood. I should add that Daddy did not obtain his birth certificate until he was about 45 before the two counties sorted it out! Thanks, Melissa, for bringing up a sweet memory -- I love your columns!
VinXpert
My father, who was born in the Bronx in 1913, cooked them as a teen, with his friends in open lots and called them Mickeys...and he cooked them for us every summer when we were at the beach and had a grill. We always ate them, **skin and all**, with lots of butter, salt and black pepper. I still make them, on my gas grill...albeit not quite as well-charred. Still very delicious! And, YES, we always ate the charred skins (slathered with lots of butter, salt and pepper.)
chris nc
Yes, this is how we cooked them on long island 50 years ago, and I still do them this way in North Carolina. Try sweet potatoes for a great variation!
NJR
So is there any reason that these have to be done in charcoal? I have a wood stove and would love to make potatoes in the fire!!!
Birdie Kalasky
Amazing and crowd pleasing grilling experience. Used sweet potatoes and they were super vibrant sliced open. drizzled w evo and Maldon salt. People go crazy when I make these. Stack the sweet potatoes right in the chimney in layers with the natural coals. After the coals are lit we cooked them for another 20 minutes. Perfect, very low fuss and impressive.
Merrill McNicholas
Shades of my childhood reading. Fans of the "Little House Books" might remember in the book "Farmer Boy" ( Almanzo-Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband when he was a boy growing up in New York State) working with his dad and other adult men in the field. They had a small fire going and were roasting potatoes as a break food and it was pretty cold out. Almanzo got antsy for a potato (I think) and one exploded and hit him in the face. Apparently he was ok and throughly enjoyed his potato.
Sabina
My grandmother used to make this all the time in Uzbekistan too. One of my favorite recipes - I don’t recommend foil if you want to be as authentic as possible. The smoky flavor is a great add on as a result. A little salt and pepper and I could eat all 6 potatoes by myself!
CitizenCommander
This goes way further back in history... In Peru, we would use the same technique for roasting plantains and manioc. In the Caribbean, breadfruit is roasted the same way... lots of other examples...
HB
wood fire way better than charcoal
Oyang De
Do them in the coals of a fireplace fire, campfire, patio brazier, etc. Real wood makes a difference. No foil!
Cindy Shapiro
campfire-roasted in glowing wood works
Birdie Kalasky
Amazing and crowd pleasing grilling experience. Used sweet potatoes and they were super vibrant sliced open. drizzled w evo and Maldon salt. People go crazy when I make these. Stack the sweet potatoes right in the chimney in layers with the natural coals. After the coals are lit we cooked them for another 20 minutes. Perfect, very low fuss and impressive.
Paul McDonnell, NYC
My father was born in 1916 in a house that literally straddled the Brooklyn-Queens border, and he described this ash-potato thing as a joy of his childhood. I should add that Daddy did not obtain his birth certificate until he was about 45 before the two counties sorted it out! Thanks, Melissa, for bringing up a sweet memory -- I love your columns!
NJR
So is there any reason that these have to be done in charcoal? I have a wood stove and would love to make potatoes in the fire!!!
Linda Crabbe
When I was a kid in Massachusetts we would burn the leaves we raked, and put potatoes in the leaf fire (we had a lot of leaves) sometimes wrapped in foil, sometimes not. They were the best!
VinXpert
BTW...if you wrap these in foil, you are steaming the potatoes rather than roasting them...definitely not the same end result.
VinXpert
My father, who was born in the Bronx in 1913, cooked them as a teen, with his friends in open lots and called them Mickeys...and he cooked them for us every summer when we were at the beach and had a grill. We always ate them, **skin and all**, with lots of butter, salt and black pepper. I still make them, on my gas grill...albeit not quite as well-charred. Still very delicious! And, YES, we always ate the charred skins (slathered with lots of butter, salt and pepper.)
Tom
That carbonized outer eighth to quarter inch of skin/potato is absolutely necessary to impart the unique, wonderful flavor to the interior, edible part. Otherwise, it's just a plain old oven baked spud!
Susan B
Make sure to read all of the notes...historical, anthropological, not to mention humorous! I love these notes!
hl
While I'm not generally a fan of foil-wrapped "baked" potatoes, I would definitely want to use that here. The best part of any baked potato is that wonderful skin; without having some protection, those ashes would make that part inedible.
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