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Potato Roll
Put 1 cupful of cold mashed potatoes in a saucepan, add ¼ of a cupful of milk and a palatable seasoning of salt and pepper, 1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley and 2 well-beaten eggs. Mix thoroughly, take from the fire, beat until light.
Put 1 tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan; when hot, put in the potatoes spread evenly over the pan, cook slowly until a golden brown. Roll like omelet and serve smoking hot.
A potato omelet in all but name: leftover mashed potato loosened with milk and egg, browned in butter and folded over. It comes together in about ten minutes and serves two.
- The quantitiesOne cup of cold mashed potato, a quarter cup of milk, one tablespoon chopped parsley, two eggs and one tablespoon butter. The potato should be plain mashed potato without added garlic, cheese or cream sauce, or the mixture will not set cleanly.
- Warm, do not cook, the baseThe saucepan step is only to loosen the cold potato with the milk and warm it through. The original adds the beaten eggs while the pan is still on the fire and takes it off immediately afterwards; if you prefer, remove it from the heat first, since eggs stirred into a hot pan can scramble into visible curds instead of binding the mixture.
- Consistency is the hingeBeat the mixture until it is light and pourable, roughly the thickness of a loose batter. Stiff mash will not spread evenly in the pan and will tear when rolled; thin it with another spoonful or two of milk if needed.
- Pan and heatA medium skillet over medium-low suits it. "Cook slowly until a golden brown" gives no timing; expect several minutes at least, and note that high heat scorches the starch before the egg sets in the middle.
- Rolling itLoosen the edge all the way round with a thin spatula first, then tip the pan and fold the near third over, letting gravity carry the rest onto the plate. A wide flexible turner helps more than a narrow one.
- SeasoningCold mashed potato can taste flat when reheated and often needs more salt than expected. The original seasons at the same point the milk goes in, so taste before the eggs are added.
- ServingOn these quantities it makes a light supper for two. It is best straight from the pan; reheated, the egg weeps and the roll goes dense.
Recipes like this one belong to the frugal tradition of the "made-over dish" — a second appearance for food already cooked, which household cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries treated as a mark of good management rather than of poverty. Cold mashed potato was the classic candidate, turning up in cakes, croquettes, puffs and rolls, and eggs were the standard binder that let it hold a shape. The technique here is borrowed from the omelet, as the instruction to roll it and serve "smoking hot" makes plain.