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Salt and Pepper (One teaspoonful of chopped) (II)
One teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
Two pounds of Potatoes. Two ounces of grated Cheese. One and a half ounce of Butter. Butter a plated dish, peel the potatoes and cut them into rather thin slices. Lay these slices in close even rows on the dish and sprinkle over them the cheese, salt, pepper and parsley; put a piece of butter here and there on the top, and bake in a moderate oven for an hour and a quarter.
This is the tail end of a longer entry — the ingredient list has been sheared off, so the page begins mid-sentence with the parsley and never states how many potatoes or how much cheese. What survives is a plain gratin of sliced potato, cheese and butter, and it works if you supply sensible quantities.
- The missing quantitiesNothing here tells you the amounts; the ingredient line has been lost. If you want a working version, something like 2 lb of potatoes, 4 oz of grated hard cheese and 2 oz of butter will serve four, but these are modern estimates, not the book's figures.
- "A plated dish"Not a dinner plate: a silver-plated or metal serving dish that went from oven to table. A shallow earthenware or enamelled gratin dish of about 9 by 12 inches is the modern equivalent.
- Moderate ovenConventionally around 350F, 175C. At that heat a thin-sliced potato gratin will take about an hour, so the book's hour and a quarter is not excessive.
- The cheeseUnspecified. A firm English cheese such as Cheddar suits it, or Parmesan for a drier finish. Grate it rather than slicing, or it will pool rather than bind.
- No liquid, and why that mattersThis is the hinge of the dish. Nothing is poured over the potatoes, so they cook in their own moisture and the butter. Slice them genuinely thin — an eighth of an inch or less, a mandoline is easiest — and pack them tight, or the top layers dry to leather before the bottom is tender. A few tablespoons of milk or cream added at the start is the common modern insurance.
- CoveringIf the top browns before the middle softens, lay foil over it for the first forty minutes and take it off to finish.
- YieldThe recipe gives none; about four as a side dish if you use the quantities suggested above. Season each layer as you build rather than only the top, since the salt has no liquid to travel in.
Sliced potatoes baked with cheese and butter belong to the wide family of gratins that entered British high-class cookery from France in the nineteenth century, when professional kitchens in country houses and hotels often worked to French method and vocabulary. What distinguishes this version is its austerity: no cream, no stock, no garlic, no breadcrumb crust — just potato, cheese, butter and parsley, cooked slowly in the dish it is served from. The instruction to butter "a plated dish" suggests a household with plated serving ware, though how far such dishes were used for direct oven baking is unclear. Parsley as the sole herb is unremarkable in books of this kind.