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Potato Cheese Puff
3 cups hot mashed potatoes 1 1/2 cups grated cheese 3 egg yolks, well beaten 2 tablespoons melted shortening 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2/3 cup milk 3 egg whites, beaten stiff Add to the mashed potatoes the grated cheese, mixed with the yolks of eggs, shortening and seasoning and mix well. Stir in the milk and fold in the egg whites. Pile in greased baking dish and bake in moderate oven until brown. This may be dropped from a spoon on a greased baking sheet and baked in individual portions. Serve 8.
A potato souffle in all but name, stiff enough to hold a shape on a baking sheet. The original assumes you know what a moderate oven is and how long browning takes; both are worth pinning down.
- Oven temperature"Moderate oven" in books of this period is generally taken as about 350-375F. At that heat a dish of this volume will need roughly 35 to 45 minutes to set and colour; spoon-dropped portions rather less, around 20 to 25 minutes.
- ShorteningIn books of this period "shortening" usually points to a solid vegetable fat, though the term could also cover butter or lard. Butter is a straight substitute by volume and tastes better here.
- Grated cheeseUnqualified "cheese" at the time meant firm American or store cheese — a mild cheddar type. Use a sharp cheddar for flavour and grate it yourself; pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch that dulls the texture.
- Work the potatoes hotThe cheese and yolks are meant to be beaten into potatoes still hot, so the cheese melts and the yolks thicken. Cold or refrigerated mashed potato will stay grainy and the mixture will not lighten.
- FoldingFold the whites in with a spatula in a few decisive strokes and get the dish into the oven at once. Everything else can be mixed ahead; once the whites are in, the puff is on a clock.
- Milk quantityTwo-thirds cup suits stiff, dry mashed potatoes made without much liquid. If your mash is already soft and buttery, hold back a third of the milk or the mixture will spread rather than puff.
- Yield"Serve 8" is best read as eight side-dish portions. As a supper dish with a salad it will stretch less far, perhaps four to five.
Menu books of the interwar decades leaned on dishes like this: they stretched mashed potato and a modest amount of cheese into something that looked like an occasion, and they arrived at the table under the fashionable label of a puff or souffle. The technique follows French souffle practice — a heavy base lightened with beaten whites — applied to the cheapest starch in the house. The alternative given at the end, dropping the mixture in mounds on a sheet, is the more practical form: individual portions brown faster, hold their rise less precariously, and let a cook serve a table without one collapsing dish at the centre of it.