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Potatoes in Kentucky Style
Slice thin as for frying, let remain in cold water half an hour; put into pudding-dish or dripping-pan, with salt, pepper, and some milk-about half a pint to an ordinary dish; put into oven and bake for an hour; take out and add a lump of butter half the size of an egg, cut into small bits and scattered over the top. Slicing allows the interior of each potato to be examined, hence its value where potatoes are doubtful, though poor ones are not of necessity required. Soaking in cold water hardens the slices, so that they will hold their shape. The milk serves to cook them through, and to make a nice brown on the top; the quantity can only be learned by experience; if just a little is left as a rich gravy, moistening all the slices, then it is right. In a year of small and poor potatoes, this method of serving them will be very welcome to many a housekeeper.-Mrs. C. M. Nichols, Springfield.
An early scalloped potato, made with milk alone and no flour, cheese or sauce. The hinge is the amount of milk: it should be almost entirely absorbed by the end, leaving a spoonful of thick gravy clinging to the slices.
- Half a pint of milkOne cup, for what the book calls "an ordinary dish" — no dish size or weight of potatoes is given. Whole milk browns better than skim.
- Butter half the size of an eggAbout 2 tablespoons. It goes on at the end rather than the start, so it stays as buttery flecks on the browned surface instead of cooking into the milk.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Around 350F for the hour is a reasonable modern equivalent; much hotter and the milk may scorch at the edges before the centre slices are tender.
- Pudding-dish or dripping-panEither a deep earthenware baking dish or a shallow roasting pan. The shallow pan gives more browned surface and cooks faster; check it at 40 minutes.
- The half-hour soakCold water hardens the slices, as the recipe says, so they hold their shape. The recipe's own aim is a little liquid left as a "rich gravy," moistening all the slices.
- Slice thickness"Thin as for frying" probably means something around 1/8 inch; the book gives no measurement. Thicker slices may not cook through in an hour with only a cup of milk.
- CoveringThe original leaves the dish open, which is how the top browns. If the milk has gone before the potatoes are tender, lay foil over for the last stretch rather than adding more liquid.
- YieldPerhaps four to six as a side dish; the book gives none. Note the recipe puts the salt and pepper in with the milk rather than layer by layer.
The instruction to slice thin so that "the interior of each potato" can be examined is the point of the recipe, and it belongs to a world of uncertain potato crops — the contributor says as much herself, closing with "in a year of small and poor potatoes." A housekeeper buying by the peck could not know what she had until she cut into it, and a dish built from slices let her discard the black-hearted and hollow ones as she went. The book is full of this kind of contributed practical wisdom, credited by name and town — here Mrs. C. M. Nichols of Springfield. Whether the "Kentucky style" label reflects any real regional practice is unclear; nineteenth-century American cookbooks attached place names to dishes freely.