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POTATOES FOR PILGRIMS (a Trappist recipe)
Boil six or eight potatoes, and cut them in slices. Make a little frying batter (see FRYING BATTER), and dip in it half a dozen onions thinly sliced; fry these in hot fat, and when they are browned, put the potatoes into the pan with them. Pour over them as much milk as will barely cover them. Sprinkle powdered sugar upon them, let them stew gently a short time, and serve very hot. Time to stew, five or six minutes. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A monastic supper dish of battered fried onions finished in milk. It works, but two details in the wording will trip up a modern cook: what "powdered sugar" meant, and how briefly the whole thing is meant to sit on the heat.
- Powdered sugarIn Victorian usage this means finely ground granulated sugar, what we now call caster or superfine sugar. It does not mean modern confectioners' sugar, which is cut with cornstarch and will cloud the milk. A teaspoon or two is enough; the sugar is there to lift the onions, not to sweeten the dish.
- Seasoning is missingNo salt or pepper is specified here. Salt the milk and add pepper, or the result tastes flat against the sugar.
- The batterThe recipe sends you to a separate frying-batter entry; you want a coating batter about the thickness of heavy cream. Slice the onions into rings rather than shreds so they can be dipped and lifted individually.
- Fry the onions dry and hardGet the fat to about 350-375F and brown the rings properly before any milk goes near them. Underbrowned batter turns to paste the moment it is covered with liquid.
- PotatoesBoil in their skins and peel while warm, then slice thickly. A waxy or all-purpose potato holds its shape; a floury baking potato will collapse into the milk.
- Barely cover, and keep it below a boil"As much milk as will barely cover" is the whole technique. A gentle stew of five or six minutes warms everything through and lets the starch thicken the milk slightly. A hard boil risks catching or scalding the milk and will strip the batter off the onions.
- Timing means five or six minutesThat is not an abbreviation of something longer. Everything in the pan is already cooked, so the stew is a finishing step only.
- Yield and servingFour or five as a supper dish, as stated, and it must go to the table immediately. It does not hold or reheat; the batter softens to nothing within minutes.
Trappists are Cistercians of the Strict Observance, an order whose rule kept meat off the table for centuries, so their kitchens developed a deep repertoire of dishes built on potatoes, onions, milk, eggs and bread. Monastic houses were also traditional lodging for travellers and pilgrims, and dishes with names like this one generally reflect that duty of hospitality rather than any documented recipe from a particular abbey. The costing of 8d for four or five people marks it as a frugal dish even by the standards of the period, when potatoes and onions were the cheapest bulk on the market and the only extravagance here is the frying fat.