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To steam potatoes
Put them clean washed, with their skins on, into a steam, saucepan, and let the water under them be about half boiling, let them continue to boil rather quickly, until they are done; if the water once relaxes from its heat, the goodness of the potato is sure to be affected, and to become soddened, let the quality be ever so good. A too precipitate boiling is equally disadvantageons; as the higher parts of the surface of the root begin to crack and open, while the centre continues unheated and undecomposed.
A method rather than a formula: potatoes cooked whole in their skins over steady steam, with the whole argument resting on keeping the heat even. The vocabulary is early nineteenth-century but the reasoning is sound.
- "Steam saucepan"A two-part vessel: a lower pan of water and an upper perforated section for the food. Any modern steamer insert, folding basket or pasta pot with a colander lid works, so long as the potatoes sit clear of the water.
- "Half boiling" is vague on purpose"Half boiling" -- probably water hot enough to be throwing off steam freely but not yet at a rolling boil; this describes the water when the potatoes go in, since the recipe then says to "continue to boil rather quickly". There is no useful temperature conversion here; judge it by steam rather than by violent bubbling.
- What "soddened" and "undecomposed" meanSoddened is waterlogged and heavy, which the recipe blames on the heat slackening. "Undecomposed" appears to mean the substance of the potato has not broken down, so the centre stays hard and chalky.
- The hinge: constant, moderate steamKeep the lid on and the heat unwavering. Lifting the lid repeatedly or letting the pan drop off the boil is exactly the failure the recipe warns against, and it cannot be corrected later.
- Size them alikeThe original gives no times at all. Choose potatoes within an ounce or two of each other, or halve the large ones, or the cracked-outside-raw-inside problem the recipe describes appears regardless of the heat.
- TimingMedium potatoes of about 6 oz take roughly 25 to 35 minutes over steady steam; small new potatoes 15 to 20. Test with a thin skewer at the thickest point, not with a fork, which tears the flesh and lets water in.
- Skins onLeaving the skins intact is what keeps the flesh dry and the flavour concentrated. Peel afterwards, while hot, holding the potato in a cloth, if the dish calls for it.
- Seasoning and yieldSteam carries no salt into the potato, so salt after cooking or dress them with butter and salt together. Allow about 6 to 8 oz of potatoes per person as a side dish.
Steaming potatoes was argued for through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the thrifty and better-tasting alternative to boiling them in water, which was widely held to leach out flavour and leave the flesh sodden. The technical language here dash "undecomposed", "the goodness of the potato" dash may suggest a period when cookery writing was absorbing the vocabulary of natural philosophy and chemistry, and when authors liked to explain a method rather than simply prescribe it. The insistence on skins intact and on even heat is also a clue about the potatoes themselves: floury potatoes collapse and crack readily, and cooks learned to manage them by moderating the heat rather than by shortening the time.