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Potatoes: Sweet-Potato
Kartoffelklösse has sometimes a teaspoonful baking powder added to the mixture and they are boiled like dumplings in salted water, when they puff up till half as large again; then they are served with tomato sauce poured about them and a sprinkling of crisp, buttered bread crumbs, SWEET POTATOES Boiled Sweet Potatoes.
Select potatoes which are of about the same size; if wished, they may be boiled in skins and peeled before going to the table, or pare them, and cook twenty minutes in salt water.
Baked Sweet Potatoes.
Wash potatoes, wipe, dry, and bake quickly in a hot oven. If they cannot be served immediately, prick with a fork and allow the steam to escape to prevent becoming soggy.
Sweet Potato (Southern style).
Bake medium-sized potatoes; when they are soft, cut in two lengthwise and scoop out the inside with a spoon.
Put it through a potato ricer, have butter, salt, pepper, and enough thick cream to moisten. Whip with a fork until light and fluffy, refill the skins, heaping the potato into rough little mounds, and bake delicately brown.
Sweet Potatoes in Cream (Southern recipe).
When baking sweet potatoes, remove a large one from the oven while still firm. When cool, pare it, and chop to the size of peas; season with salt and butter and heap lightly in a buttered baking dish. Pour over it 3 or 4 tablespoonfuls cream, spread the top with melted butter and dust with powdered sugar.
Sweet-Potato Croquettes.
Two cupfuls mashed, boiled, steamed, or baked potatoes; add the beaten yolks of 2 eggs, and season to taste. When cold, form into small croquettes, roll in egg and bread crumbs, and fry in hot lard to an amber color. Serve on a napkin.
Broiled Sweet Potatoes.
Steam, pare, and cut in slices three eighths of an inch thick, lay the slices in a double broiler; salt, cover with melted butter, and broil over a slow fire.
Glazed Sweet Potatoes.
Boil sweet potatoes until nearly cooked, then peel and cut into quarters lengthwise. Lay on a baking platter, sprinkle over them salt, brown sugar, and melted butter, add a few tablespoonfuls boiling water.
Set in a hot part of the oven, and bake till the potatoes are covered with a thin brown glaze,
A cluster of short sweet-potato methods, written for cooks who already knew what a hot oven and a double broiler were. A few conversions and one or two corrections in timing are all that is needed.
- The stray first paragraphThe page opens mid-sentence with the tail of a Kartoffelklösse (German potato dumpling) recipe from the preceding entry. It has nothing to do with sweet potatoes; the sweet-potato recipes begin at "Boiled Sweet Potatoes."
- Oven temperaturesThe book gives no figures. Period usage for a 'hot oven' is generally taken to be somewhere in the region of 400-450F. Whole medium sweet potatoes will need considerably longer than a white potato of the same size; allow the better part of an hour and test rather than time. The glazed potatoes are simply set 'in a hot part of the oven,' which implies comparable heat.
- Boiling timeTwenty minutes for pared sweet potatoes assumes they are cut small or genuinely uniform; whole medium ones will want 25-35 minutes. Test with a skewer at the thickest point rather than by the clock.
- Pricking after bakingThe instruction to prick and vent is a useful line. Sweet potatoes hold a great deal of steam, and one left whole and undisturbed after baking turns wet and heavy inside.
- "Broil over a slow fire"A double broiler here is a hinged wire grill that clamps the slices between two grids and can be turned as a unit. Under a modern overhead broiler, set the slices well down from the element so the butter browns without burning, and turn once; a ridged pan over moderate heat does the same job.
- Frying fatThe amber colour is the doneness cue for the croquettes, not a description of the fat. Fat for croquettes of this kind is usually taken to somewhere around 360-375F; any neutral fat with a high smoke point will serve in place of lard.
- Cream'thick cream' in a book of this period means what would now be sold as heavy cream. A lighter cream will still moisten the riced potato, but the result is less rich.
- Serving on a napkinFried croquettes were sent to table on a folded linen napkin laid in the dish, which absorbed surface fat. A rack or paper does the same and keeps the crust from steaming.
- YieldThe book gives none. Two cupfuls of mashed potato with two yolks would make something on the order of eight small croquettes. The stuffed-skin method gives two halves per potato.
Sweet potatoes were a Southern staple long before they were a national side dish, and two of these seven methods are explicitly labelled "Southern" -- the vegetable was familiar enough to be cooked anywhere, but its best treatments were still credited to the region that grew and ate the most of it. The sweet potato is botanically unrelated to the white potato, being a morning-glory relative rather than a nightshade, though cookbooks of this era filed the two together on the strength of their shared role at table, as this book does. The glazing method here, with brown sugar, butter and a splash of boiling water baked down to a thin coat, is of a piece with the candied sweet potatoes later fixed to the American Thanksgiving table; the marshmallow topping came later, generally traced to confectionery advertising of the 1910s and 1920s, and is nowhere in sight in a book of this vintage.