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Stuffed Potatoes
8 large potatoes 2 ozs. (2 heaping tablespoonfuls) butter 3 tablespoonfuls cream A few buttered bread crumbs Salt, pepper, and paprika
The book prints only the ingredient list here; the method belongs to a standard technique the period expected every cook to know. What follows fills in the gaps and translates the quantities.
- The missing methodBake the potatoes whole until tender, halve them lengthwise, scoop the flesh into a bowl leaving the shells intact, mash it with the butter, cream and seasoning, pile it back into the shells, top with the buttered crumbs and return to a hot oven until the tops colour.
- Oven heatThe book gives no temperature. In a modern oven, bake the whole potatoes around 400F until a skewer goes through without resistance, then brown the filled halves in a hotter oven or under a broiler until the tops colour.
- 2 ozs. butterFour tablespoons, half a stick. The book's gloss of '2 heaping tablespoonfuls' is heaping rather than level, which accounts for the difference from modern spoon measures; go by the weight.
- CreamRead this as light or single cream rather than heavy; period cream varied a good deal in richness. Heavy cream works and gives a richer filling; use slightly less, or warm it first so the mash does not stiffen.
- Buttered bread crumbsFresh crumbs from a day-old loaf tossed with melted butter, not the dry canister sort. The recipe gives no quantity; use enough to cover the tops.
- PaprikaIn this period paprika was often used for colour on the tops as much as for flavour. Sweet Hungarian paprika is closest to what the recipe intends; smoked paprika is a modern flavour and will dominate.
- Working the potatoMash while hot and stop as soon as it is smooth. Beaten cold, or worked too long, potato turns gluey, and a food processor will do it in seconds.
- YieldEight potatoes halved gives sixteen shells, enough for eight people as a side dish or four or five as a light supper with a salad.
Stuffed or "twice-baked" potatoes appear all through American and British household cookery from the late nineteenth century onward, and they belong to the same thrifty logic as croquettes and rissoles: cook something plain, then dress it up so it can go to table as a dish in its own right. The appeal of such dishes was practical as much as fashionable: one vessel went from oven to table, saving a serving dish, a washing-up, and the heat lost in transferring food. The bare ingredient list here is typical of the genre, which assumed a reader who already knew how to bake a potato and needed only to be told what to put in it.