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Potatoes Boiled in Their Jackets
Potatoes are frequently boiled and served in their jackets, and a small plate is placed by the side of each guest to receive the skins. The skins are frequently removed before serving. Choose potatoes of uniform size, and scrub them with a soft brush until they are perfectly clean. Put them into a saucepan with a little cold water, not quite sufficient to cover them. Boil them as gently as possible, for the more slowly they are cooked the better they will be. If a little salt is thrown in occasionally, it will be found a great improvement. If the potatoes are large, add half a cupful of cold water every now and then. In order to ascertain whether or not they are done enough, probe them occasionally with a fork, and when they are tender throughout, pour off the water, put the saucepan once more on the fire, and let it remain until the potatoes are quite dry. Send them to table.
A plain method that still works, though a few of its instructions reflect a coal range rather than a modern burner. The hinge is the final drying: potatoes left sitting in their water turn sodden.
- Water levelThe original deliberately uses less water than would cover the potatoes. It says nothing about a lid, but with water this shallow a covered pan is the practical reading, or the tops will cook unevenly; a modern equivalent is an inch of water in a lidded saucepan.
- SaltThe original throws salt in "occasionally" rather than all at once; the reason is not given. Salt the water once at the start, about a teaspoon per quart, and be done with it. Salt penetrates skin-on potatoes very little in any case.
- Adding cold waterThe half-cupful of cold water for large potatoes would both replenish a pan that never held enough to cover them and check the boil. On a gas or electric hob, top up sparingly and lower the heat to a bare simmer.
- Gentle boilThe advice to cook as slowly as possible is sound: a hard boil bursts the skins and waterlogs the flesh. Aim for a lazy simmer with occasional bubbles.
- Uniform sizeThis matters more than it sounds, as a pan of mixed sizes gives you collapsing small potatoes alongside raw centres. Medium waxy or all-purpose potatoes take roughly 20-30 minutes, large baking types 35-45.
- TestingThe original probes with a fork; a thin skewer does less damage to the skins. Done means no resistance at the centre.
- The drying stepDraining and returning the pan to low heat for a minute or two drives off surface moisture and is the difference between mealy and clammy potatoes. Shake the pan once or twice and leave the lid off.
- Yield and servingThe original gives no quantities; two medium potatoes per person is a reasonable modern reckoning. If you serve them jacketed, the small side plate the original mentions is still the tidiest solution; otherwise peel them while hot, holding each in a cloth.
Boiling potatoes in their skins was long held to be the honest way to cook them, on the grounds that peeling before boiling let flavour and substance leach into the water, and nineteenth-century cookery writers repeat the argument often. Serving potatoes jacketed with a receptacle for the skins is still associated with Irish and Scottish practice. The insistence on slow cooking suggests potatoes were treated as a dish in their own right rather than an afterthought, and the instruction to set the saucepan "once more on the fire" points to a solid-fuel range whose heat could be coaxed but not dialled.