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POTATOES, BOILED (Irish fashion)
In Ireland potatoes are cooked so that they may have, as they call it, a bone in them; that is, that the middle part shall not be quite cooked. They are done thus. Put a gallon of water with two ounces of salt in a large iron pot with the potatoes, boil for about ten minutes, or until the skin is loose, pour the water out of the pot, put a dry cloth on the top of the potatoes, and place the pot on the side of the fire, without water, for about twenty minutes, and serve. In Ireland turf is the principal article of fuel, which is burnt on the flat hearth; a little of it is generally scraped up round the pot so as to keep a gradual heat; by this plan the potato is both boiled and baked. Probable cost, 1d. or 1 1/2d. per pound.
This is a two-stage method disguised as a boil: a short spell in salted water, then a long steam-bake in the dry pot. The hinge is that the pot must go on gentle, indirect heat once the water is out, or the bottom layer scorches before the middle cooks.
- The "bone" is deliberateA bone in the potato means a firm centre that is, as the book says, "not quite cooked." If you want them cooked through, extend the dry steaming by five to ten minutes rather than boiling longer.
- Reproducing the turf hearthTurf scraped up round the pot gave gentle, all-round heat; the book gives no temperature. The closest modern equivalents are the pot, lidded and cloth-covered, in a low oven for the twenty minutes, or on the smallest burner at its lowest setting with a heat diffuser underneath.
- Water and saltA gallon of water to two ounces of salt is about 4.5 litres to 57 g, roughly 1.25 percent salinity, saltier than many modern potato waters. Scale it down: use just enough water to cover, with a tablespoon of salt per litre.
- Potatoes in their skinsThe instruction to boil until the skin is loose only makes sense with unpeeled potatoes, and the method depends on the skin holding the flesh together while it steams dry. Choose a floury variety of even size, around 6-8 oz each, so they finish together.
- The dry clothA folded tea towel laid over the potatoes under the lid absorbs the steam that would otherwise condense and drip back, which is what keeps the surface dry and mealy. Wring it out if damp, and keep the ends clear of any flame or element.
- Pot choiceHeavy cast iron is not optional here. A thin pan will burn the lowest layer of potatoes during the waterless stage.
- Cost and yieldThe penny to penny-and-a-half per pound is a Victorian retail note and tells you only that potatoes were very cheap. Allow 8-12 oz per person as a side dish; the recipe assumes a large iron pot rather than a stated capacity.
Cassell's presents this as a national method rather than a dish, and the description is accurate to nineteenth-century Irish practice: potatoes eaten in the skin, in quantity, cooked over a hearth fire fed with turf cut from the bog. The taste for a firm centre, the "bone" in the potato, is traditionally explained as proof the potato had not been over-boiled into sogginess. The waterless second stage is a thrifty piece of physics as much as a preference, since it uses the residual heat of an iron pot and a banked fire to finish the cooking without further fuel. Writing in the decades after the Famine, an English compiler recording Irish potato cookery was describing a food that had been both the mainstay and the catastrophe of rural Ireland, though Cassell's, characteristically, confines itself to the technique and the price per pound.