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Scalloped Potatoes
Slice, after paring, raw potatoes enough to fill a deep baking dish full, shaking them down well. Put the potatoes in the dish in layers, with bits of butter, salt and pepper until full. Pour over a cup of milk and put in the oven to bake. It will take at least an hour to bake. If the oven is quick, cover at first.
If milk dries away, add more. The more butter and baking, the better the dish.
A few slices of salt pork may be laid over the top with less butter; if pork is not liked, remove just before potatoes are done. A little onion juice is liked by some.
A plain milk-and-butter gratin with no thickener and no cheese, and it works as long as the potatoes are cut thin and the dish stays moist. Two things decide the outcome: slice thickness and keeping the top covered until the potatoes are tender.
- Slice thin and evenlyThe recipe says only "slice," which in practice means about 1/8 inch. Anything thicker will still be firm after an hour, and uneven slices give you both scorched edges and raw centers. A mandoline or the slicing plate of a food processor is the reliable route.
- Oven temperatureBake at 350F for the hour the recipe specifies. A "quick oven" in period usage is generally taken to be somewhere in the 400-450F range; at that heat the instruction to cover at first is essential, or the milk boils off and the top burns before the interior softens.
- Cover, then uncoverFoil or a lid for the first 40 minutes, then uncovered for the last 20 to brown. Covering the whole time gives pale, soupy potatoes; leaving it off the whole time gives a dry, set top over hard slices.
- A cup of milk is a starting pointFor a deep dish holding 2 to 2 1/2 lb of potatoes, a cup barely reaches the second layer. The instruction to add more milk if it dries away is the real measurement — expect to add another half cup to a cup, warmed, partway through.
- Milk will look curdledWith no flour or starch, the milk separates as it bakes and clings to the potato starch instead of forming a smooth sauce. This is correct for the period. Whole milk or milk with a splash of cream holds together better than skim.
- Butter and salt"Bits of butter" between layers means roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons total for a large dish. Salt each layer as you go; potatoes seasoned only on top taste flat all the way down.
- The salt pork variationThin slices laid over the top render and baste the potatoes, so cut the butter to about 2 tablespoons if you use it. The recipe adds that if the pork flavour is not wanted, the slices can be lifted off just before the potatoes are done.
- Onion juiceA period trick — grate an onion and use the liquid, about a teaspoon, so you get the flavor without raw slices that stay crunchy. Thinly sliced onion scattered through the layers does the same job now.
- YieldA deep 2-quart dish of this serves six as a side. Let it stand 10 minutes out of the oven so the liquid settles into the potatoes.
Scalloped dishes are usually said to take their name from the old sense of "scallop" -- to bake something in slices or shreds with liquid and crumbs, perhaps originally in a shell-shaped dish -- and by the late nineteenth century American cookbooks were applying the word to a wide range of things layered in a baking dish with milk or sauce. Potatoes were among the cheapest candidates, and plain versions like this one, with nothing but butter, milk, salt and pepper, are common in household manuals of the 1880s and 1890s; cheese and flour-thickened versions are also found in the period. The salt pork option reflects an older habit: in a kitchen where pork was kept in the barrel and butter was seasonal and dear, fat from the pig was a ready enrichment. The line "the more butter and baking, the better the dish" is the whole argument of the recipe.