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Potato Balls En Casserole
2 egg yolks 2 heaping tablespoonfuls (2 Salt and paprika to taste 1 lb. boiled potatoes ozs.) butter 1 tablespoonful chopped pars- 2 heaping tablespoonfuls (1 ley oz.) grated cheese Rub the potatoes through a sieve, add the butter, cheese, yolks of eggs well beaten, salt and pepper.
Make into neat balls, lay them on a buttered fireproof dish, brush over with a little beaten egg, mark with a fork, and bake a nice brown color in the oven; pour over them a little melted butter, and sprinkle with the chopped parsley and paprika.
Serve hot.
A simple duchesse-style potato that lives or dies on how dry the potato is before the butter and yolks go in. The book gives no oven temperature, so use judgement rather than the vague instruction to bake brown.
- Dry the potatoes firstBoiled potatoes hold enough water to slacken the mixture into something that will not hold a ball. Drain them, return them to the dry pan over low heat for a minute or two to steam off, then sieve while still hot.
- Casserole means the vesselHere 'casserole' appears to mean the ovenproof earthenware or fireproof dish itself rather than a baked mixture; the recipe's own wording is 'buttered fireproof dish', i.e. any shallow ovenproof dish or a rimmed baking sheet.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 400-425F for 15-20 minutes, which browns the egg wash before the interiors dry out. A slower oven leaves them pale and the surface leathery.
- The measurementsTwo heaping tablespoonfuls of butter is given as 2 oz, roughly 4 level tablespoons or half a stick. Two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated cheese is given as 1 oz, so a hard grating cheese finely grated -- Parmesan or a dry aged Cheddar.
- Salt and pepper, or paprikaThe ingredient line calls for salt and paprika while the method says salt and pepper. Season the mixture with salt and white or black pepper and keep the paprika for the finishing sprinkle, where its color is the point.
- Marking with a forkNot decoration alone. The ridges catch the egg wash and butter and brown faster than a smooth surface, giving the crisp exterior that distinguishes these from plain mashed potato.
- YieldA pound of potatoes makes about twelve walnut-sized balls, enough for three or four as a side dish. They can be shaped and chilled several hours ahead, then washed with egg and baked to order.
Potato balls of this kind are a domestic relative of pommes duchesse, the sieved-potato-and-yolk mixture piped into borders and rosettes in French professional kitchens during the later nineteenth century. Dishes of this sort suited cooking in a fireproof earthenware dish that could go from oven to table. The egg yolks do double duty, binding the potato and enriching it, while the wash of beaten egg on the outside produces the glaze, as in pastry work.