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Potato Cakes, German, to Serve with Game or Poutry
Beat up two or three pounds of hot boiled potatoes, dry and mealy, with a slice of butter and two or three eggs. Rub the mash with a wooden spoon until it is quite smooth, and spread it out in a layer about three-quarters of an inch thick. Stamp it into shapes with an ordinary pastry-cutter, brush these over with beaten egg, cover with bread-crumbs, and sprinkle lightly upon them a little grated Parmesan. Fry in hot fat till they are lightly browned, drain them on blotting-paper, and serve very hot. If liked, they may be used to garnish the dish they are to accompany. Time, four or five minutes to brown the cakes. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A straightforward croquette-style potato cake, but its success hangs entirely on the dryness of the mash. The original assumes floury potatoes and an unhurried cook.
- The hinge: dry potatoes"Dry and mealy" is the whole instruction. Use a floury variety (Russet, Maris Piper, King Edward), boil or steam whole in the skin, and return the peeled flesh to the dry pan over low heat for a minute to drive off steam before mashing. Waxy potatoes hold water and the cakes will slump in the fat.
- "A slice of butter"An imprecise Victorian measure meaning a piece cut from the block, in practice 1 to 2 oz (30-55 g) for this quantity. More than that softens the mixture beyond what will hold a stamped shape.
- Eggs in the mashThe recipe pairs "two or three pounds" of potato with "two or three eggs" without saying which goes with which; two eggs for 2 lb and three for 3 lb is the obvious reading. They bind, but they also loosen: work them into the potato while it is hot, then let the layer cool completely before stamping, or the rounds will not lift cleanly.
- Chill before cuttingThe recipe does not say so, but spreading the mash three-quarters of an inch thick on a tray and refrigerating it for an hour makes stamping and crumbing far easier, and the cakes hold together in the fat.
- Frying temperatureThe book says only "hot fat"; for a four-to-five minute browning that suggests somewhere in the region of 350-375F (175-190C). Below that the crumb coat absorbs fat and the cakes fall apart; much above it and the outside colours before the centre heats through.
- Blotting-paperNineteenth-century kitchens drained fried food on unsized blotting paper. Use kitchen paper, or better a wire rack set over a tray, which keeps the crumb crust from steaming soft underneath.
- ParmesanA light sprinkling only, perhaps 1 oz (30 g) across the batch. Cheese on the outside of a fried crumb coat scorches quickly, which is another reason not to push the fat past 375F.
- YieldThe number of cakes will depend on the size of the cutter; the book's "four or five persons" assumes these are one dish among several at a game dinner, not a main course.
Cassell's places this among a long run of potato preparations aimed at the game season, when a plain starchy accompaniment was expected alongside pheasant, partridge or hare. The "German" label in Victorian English cookery books was applied loosely to any dish thought to come from the German-speaking kitchen, and potato cakes bound with egg and fried in crumbs belong to a broad Central European family that includes the Austrian and Bohemian potato dumplings and fritters of the same period. The instruction to stamp the mixture with a pastry-cutter and use the results as a garnish reflects the service style of the era, when a roast bird came to table ringed with something crisp and uniform rather than plated portion by portion. The mention of blotting-paper is characteristic of the period: absorbent paper was a standard kitchen consumable before purpose-made kitchen towel, and Victorian cookery writers recommended it routinely for draining anything fried.