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Baked Potatoes
Wash and scrub the baking potatoes. Dry them. Rub entire surface with margarine. Bake until tender. Cut a cross in top center, press end of potato together to puff up center through the cross cut, drop a cube of butter into it, and sprinkle with paprika.
A method rather than a formula: the original gives no temperature, no timing and no quantities, which was normal for a menu book that assumed the cook already knew how to run an oven.
- The missing oven settingBake at 425F for 45 to 60 minutes depending on size, or at 350F for about 75 minutes if you are already running a moderate oven for the rest of the meal. Higher heat gives a drier, flakier interior and a tougher skin.
- Which potato"Baking potatoes" here means a dry, mealy variety -- russet or Idaho. Waxy red or new potatoes will not fluff when pressed and will turn dense and slightly gluey instead.
- Why the fat on the skinRubbing the surface with margarine keeps the skin supple and helps it brown. If you want a crisp skin instead, rub with oil and coarse salt and skip any foil; wrapping in foil steams the potato and defeats the whole method.
- MargarineMid-century margarine was generally a firm block fat used as a butter substitute. Any solid butter or margarine works for the rub; note that the recipe uses margarine on the skin and reserves butter for the cube dropped inside at the end.
- Test for tenderA skewer or thin knife should meet no resistance at the center, and the potato should give slightly when squeezed through a towel. Undercooked centers stay waxy and will not puff.
- The puffThis is the hinge of the recipe. Cut the cross and press the two ends toward each other immediately out of the oven, while steam is still escaping -- a cooled potato has set and will only crumble.
- YieldThe original gives no quantity; reckon one potato per person and scale by the number at table. Serve promptly, as the puffed interior settles as it cools.
The baked potato needs no ancestry beyond the domestic oven. The little flourish here -- the cross cut, the squeeze, the cube of butter, the dusting of paprika -- has the look of American recipe writing of the earlier twentieth century, though nothing in the text itself fixes a date. Paprika was a common finishing touch for pale dishes in period books, from deviled eggs to creamed fish, used chiefly for colour rather than heat. The recipe rubs the skin with margarine and reserves butter for the table, a division consistent with households in which margarine was the working fat and butter the smaller luxury.