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Potato Roses
Boil mealy white potatoes, and as soon as done put through a ricer and prepare with milk, butter and seasoning as for ordinary mashed potatoes.
Have ready a pastry bag with a large sized rose end. Put the potatoes in this and press out on a flat, greased pan in the shape of roses. the top of each with beaten egg yolk and brown in a quick oven. If no pastry bag is on hand shape into cones with a broad-bladed knife and finish in the same way.
A duchesse-style potato piped into rosettes and glazed. The recipe assumes you know how to mash potatoes and spends its words on the shaping, so the details that matter are texture and oven heat.
- A quick ovenRoughly 400-425F by most period equivalences. The rosettes want high heat so the surface colours before the piped ridges slump; expect the browning to take only a short time, so watch them rather than trusting a clock.
- Mealy potatoes are not optionalRussets or another high-starch, low-moisture potato. Waxy varieties pipe into a gluey paste that will not hold a ridge. Dry the drained potatoes in the hot pan for a minute before ricing.
- Keep the mash stiffMilk and butter "as for ordinary mashed potatoes" is more liquid than piping will tolerate. Add enough for smoothness and stop; the mixture should hold a peak on the spoon. Classic duchesse formulas bind the potato with egg yolk, which is what helps it hold its shape; this recipe uses yolk only on top.
- The missing verbThe line "the top of each with beaten egg yolk" is missing a word; something like brush or paint is clearly intended. Thin the yolk with a teaspoon of milk or cream so it spreads without dragging the ridges flat.
- Pipe while hotCold mashed potato is stiff and grainy and will tear at the nozzle. Fill the bag as soon as the potatoes are seasoned, and use a large open star tube -- the "rose end" of the original.
- Chill before baking, if you canTwenty minutes in the refrigerator or freezer sets the piped shapes and can give sharper definition after glazing. Not in the original, which pipes and browns straight away.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity. As a rough guide, two pounds of potatoes will give something like twelve to sixteen rosettes, enough as a garnish or side for four to six.
Potato roses are the thrift-cookbook version of pommes duchesse, the piped and glazed potato that French professional kitchens used through the nineteenth century to border a platter of meat or fish. The pastry bag with a star tube, borrowed from the confectioner, is what made the form possible, and the author allows for the cook who has none, offering a knife-shaped cone instead. That is the logic of economical cooking generally: plain-boiled potato, an egg yolk, and a few minutes of shaping stand in for an expensive garnish.