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Potato, Puree Of
Peel and wash a pound of good regents. Boil and drain them, and beat them up with a fork. Stir in with them a quarter of a pint of good broth or thick cream, and pass them through a wire sieve. Put the puree into a saucepan with two ounces of butter and a little pepper, and stir it over a gentle fire until it is quite hot. Pour it into the centre of a hot dish, and arrange delicately-broiled cutlets-mutton, pork, or lamb-in a circle round it. Time, five or six minutes to heat the puree. Probable cost, 8d., if mixed with cream. Sufficient for a small dish.
A plain potato puree used as a bed for chops rather than as a side dish. The only technical demand is the sieving, which is what separates this from mashed potato.
- RegentsThe Regent was a popular floury English maincrop potato of the nineteenth century, now essentially gone from sale. Use any dry, floury variety — Russet, Maris Piper, King Edward — as waxy potatoes turn gluey when forced through a sieve.
- A quarter of a pintBritish imperial measure, so 5 fl oz, a little more than half a US cup. Warm the cream or broth before adding it, or the puree will cool and stiffen before it reaches the sieve.
- The sieve is the pointBeat the potatoes only roughly with the fork, then push them through a fine wire sieve or a drum sieve with a plastic scraper; a ricer gives much the same result. Do not be tempted to use a blender or food processor — the blades rupture the starch cells and the puree turns to paste in seconds.
- Gentle fireReheat over the lowest heat, stirring constantly, or over a pan of simmering water. Two ounces of butter to a pound of potato is a rich mixture that will catch and scorch on direct high heat.
- SeasoningThe original calls for pepper only, with no mention of salt. Taste and salt it; an unsalted potato puree is flat.
- The cutlets"Delicately-broiled" means grilled or pan-seared quickly — mutton, lamb or pork chops, trimmed and cooked to your preference. The recipe has them arranged in a circle around the mound of puree in the centre of the dish.
- YieldThe original says only "sufficient for a small dish". A pound of potatoes with butter and cream would likely serve two or three as a base for chops. Scale up rather than stretching it thinner.
- Probable costEightpence in pre-decimal currency, quoted so a cook could price a dish against the household budget. It is a period detail, not a figure that converts usefully.
Sieved potato puree of this kind is associated with French professional practice, where a purée de pommes de terre was distinguished by texture: enriched with butter and cream and passed through a tamis until smooth, as distinct from a domestic mash simply broken up with a fork. The naming of a specific variety is also of its time: Victorian seedsmen and greengrocers sold potatoes by cultivar, and a cook would be expected to know that a Regent was floury and would sieve cleanly, while a waxy kidney potato would not.