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Potatoes Boiled or Baked in Jackets
Wash clean (a brush is the best implement for cleaning potatoes), cut off the ends, let stand in cold water a few hours, put into boiling water, the larger ones first, and then in a short time adding the rest, cover, and keep boiling constantly; after fifteen minutes throw in another handful of salt and boil another fifteen minutes; try with a fork, and if it does not quite run through the potato, they are done (this is called "leaving a bone in them"). Drain, take to door or window and shake in open air to make them mealy; return to stove and allow to stand uncovered for a moment. Or, when washed, bake in a moderate oven fifty minutes; or, place in a steamer half an hour over water kept constantly boiling, serve immediately; or, wash and peel medium-sized ones, and bake in pan with roast meat, basting often with the drippings.
A straightforward set of four methods for whole potatoes, written when potatoes were larger, older and dirtier than what comes out of a modern bag. A few of the steps need translating.
- "A moderate oven"350F. Fifty minutes suits a medium russet; a large baking potato wants closer to an hour to an hour and a quarter, until a skewer meets no resistance in the centre.
- Soaking and cutting the endsBoth steps likely addressed stored winter potatoes, which sprout at the ends; the recipe does not say why. With fresh supermarket potatoes neither is necessary; a scrub with a brush is enough. Cut away any green skin, which signals raised solanine and tastes bitter.
- Salting lateSalting -- The recipe adds a further handful of salt fifteen minutes in ("another handful"), so salt was evidently already in the pot. Modern practice salts the water from the start and leaves it at that.
- "Leaving a bone in them"A slight firmness at the very centre when the pot comes off the heat. Residual heat finishes the cooking during draining and drying, so the potato does not disintegrate. Useful advice, and still correct.
- Boiling constantlyA hard rolling boil for thirty minutes will break up most modern varieties. A steady simmer gets the same result with the skins intact; total time for medium potatoes is usually 20 to 30 minutes rather than a flat thirty.
- Shaking in the open airThe point is evaporation, not fresh air. Drain well, return the pan to a low burner uncovered and let the surface steam dry for a minute or two; the flesh goes floury rather than damp.
- Roasting with the meatPeeled potatoes basted in drippings need the oven at roasting temperature, 400 to 425F, and about an hour, turning once or twice. At 350F alongside a slow roast they will take longer and brown less.
- YieldReckon on one large or two medium potatoes per person, roughly 1 1/2 lb for four.
Buckeye Cookery came out of Ohio households in the 1870s and 80s, and its potato entry reads like kitchen lore set down rather than a recipe composed: four methods run together in one paragraph, with the assumption that the cook already knows what a mealy potato should feel like. The detail worth keeping is the phrase "leaving a bone in them" — a piece of nineteenth-century kitchen slang for pulling starchy vegetables just short of done. Potatoes cooked in their skins were the default in a period when peeling meant waste and the skin held the potato together through a long boil; the instruction to carry the drained pot to the door and shake it belongs to a world of coal ranges and steamy kitchens.