Texas Barbeque and Monster Potatoes
A few weeks ago, I was in Dallas and since I am always on the lookout for new barbecue joints, I took the recommendation of a friend and went to visit Mike Anderson’s. I wasn’t familiar with this Dallas institution and so when I arrived at 2 p.m., they had just shut their doors. The restaurant serves lunch every day and that’s it. We were out of luck, but Mike and his wife were nice enough to open the doors, offer us a beer and talk about their ‘Que.
The restaurant has been in operation more than 20 years and serves all kinds of barbecue and home-style sides. But the thing that I was most curious about was their "Monster Potatoes." Mike told me that they had served 500 potatoes on this regular Friday—in addition to all the other barbecue offerings. That blew me away…and started my craving for a Texas Monster Potato.
The stuffed baked potatoes are made using 2-pound potatoes that are about 7-8 inches long and about 4-inches wide. At Mike Anderson’s they are split and stuffed with every imaginable combination of cheese and sour cream, bacon, onions, jalapenos, olives etc. and then topped with chopped beef, pork, chicken, ham, sausage, etc. and a healthy dose of barbecue sauce. I couldn’t decide if I thought that sounded heavenly or a little too much, but I was intrigued.
Fast forward to this week. I went to Austin to speak (and visit my buddies) at the National Barbecue Conference. We took a tour of some of Austin’s finest BBQ restaurants and low and behold, Smokey Mo’s Bar B Que had a big ole stuffed baked potato! I couldn’t wait to try it. The counter person suggested I try the potato with their chopped smoked turkey. In a blink of an eye, they presented me with a steaming baked potato, split and stuffed with a tower of butter, sour cream, cheddar cheese, chopped scallions and the silkiest, moistest, smoked turkey that I have ever eaten. The trick is to put enough of each topping on the potato so that you can taste everything with each bite, but not so much that you drown out the potato. I am sure there is a fine line here, but Smokey Mo’s hit it with perfection. The heat of the hot potato melts the butter and cheese and warms the meat. The fluffy potato takes the place of bread and when you get a bite with a little bit of everything, the raw crunch of the scallion mixed with the richness of the potato, cheese, butter and sour cream make a perfect bed for the smoky toothsome meat. I shared this potato with my table and we still couldn’t eat all of it. I used to dream of brisket and sausage when I went to Texas, but now it is the Monster Potato that is at the head of my list!
Texas-Style Monster Potato
This stuffed potato is the most basic and similar to the one that I had at Mo’s. Use this recipe as a point of departure and add all your favorite toppings. This recipe is for 1 potato, double it as many times as you need to feed your crowd. You can also use the baked potato as the base for killer nachos.
1 freshly baked russet potato, about 2 pounds
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter at room temperature
2 tablespoons sour cream
½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup chopped smoked turkey, brisket, pork, sausage etc.
2 scallions cleaned, trimmed and chopped
Favorite Barbecue Sauce
Take the potato out of the oven or grill. Split it down the middle and press on the sides to open. Season the potato flesh with salt and pepper. Layer the butter, sour cream, cheese and turkey in the open depression of the potato. Sprinkle the scallions over top and serve with sauce on the side.
Repeat as necessary to serve a crowd.
Serves 1 in Texas!
Kyle on March 05, 2008 at 12:41 PM
It's a shame folks persist in referring to entirely different foods by the same name.
California raise, who's spent quite a lot of time in Texas, North Carolina, and such. IMO, Smokey Mo's in Austin has the best BBQ sauce I've had anywhere. For brisket, It's awful hard to beat Lockhart's set of BBQ joints, and then there's Sausage that's worth eating in Elgin. Of course, jalepenos are mandatory.
In Carolina, the whole pork, vinegar, hush-puppies and slaw thing is, when done well, excellent. But much like Texas BBQ, once you've had very good stuff, stuff that's only decent is almost not worth eating.
KC, I've been to places that barely improve on Denny's, but not any fabulous places.
These days, I'm living in Chicago, and don't know where to find real-ish barbeque of any flavor. Any suggestions?
Barry Kopulos on November 16, 2008 at 09:50 PM
I went to Chicago Joes at Victoria Inn in Winnipeg and ordered the 8 oz Certified Angus steak dinner which came with a one pound baked potato. I was raised on a farm and had never heard of potato that weighed that much. I decided to try that because that aroused my curiousity how big it actually could be. When the dinner finally came it was huge so big three or more could easily could have shared in it. But no one at table wanted to try so I ate the best part ofthe whle thing. I joked to server it must have been grown on another planet because I had never in all my days eating out had seen one this big before. He said it was a 4 pound potato the largest he had ever seen served.
Now I read that a potato was grown in space is it possible they did some experimentation with genes and got them to grow this big. Maybe they could be organically grown too?
Could anyone give me more info if this kind is new breed or existing one modified to grow so big?
i am writing a news story for a scriptwriting course and am interested in a story about this new type of potato beings served at restaurants in Canada.
herbal toothpaste on May 13, 2010 at 06:51 AM
The potato originated in Peru and has been cultivated since 8000 years ago in South America and it was important food of the Incas who developed advanced techniques for storing. In the fourth century the Spanish conquistadors brought it to Europe and sold in 1573 and potato in Seville. In 1900 he became one of the main food of the world. However, in the old world passed through fears and doubts in some places because it is attributed to be the cause of many evils from leprosy to lust.
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