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Yankee Potatoes
1 quart chopped cooked potatoes 1/4 cup cream 1 teaspoon salt pepper 1 teaspoon chopped parsley 3 tablespoons butter Melt the butter in omelet pan, and add potatoes and seasonings when pan is hot. Pack lightly into pan and cook slowly for 25 minutes. Fold and serve like an omelet. Serves 6.
A potato cake cooked in a skillet and folded like an omelet — essentially hash browns given a New England name. The whole thing hinges on low heat and patience.
- How much potatoA quart of chopped cooked potatoes is about 1 1/2 lb of boiled potatoes, roughly five medium. Boil them the day before and chill; cold, dry potato browns and holds together, warm potato steams and falls apart.
- The omelet panAn 8- to 10-inch skillet with sloping sides, which is what makes the fold possible. A well-seasoned cast iron or a nonstick pan both work; straight-sided pans make turning it out awkward.
- Slowly means slowlyTwenty-five minutes over low to medium-low heat is the point of the dish. It builds one continuous browned crust on the underside rather than scattered crisp bits. Resist stirring after the potatoes are packed down.
- Pack lightlyPress just enough to make the mass cohere. Compacting hard gives a dense, gluey cake instead of a tender one.
- The creamA quarter cup of cream binds and enriches; half-and-half or whole milk works, though the crust will be slightly less rich. Add it with the potatoes, not after the crust has set.
- Folding itRun a thin spatula around and under the edge to free the crust before folding, and slide rather than lift. If it refuses to fold cleanly, invert it onto a plate and serve as a flat cake — the eating is the same.
- YieldSix as a side dish. As a supper main with eggs or bacon it will stretch to four at most.
Chopped cooked potatoes crisped in butter belong to a long line of thrift cookery: the dish exists because boiled potatoes were cooked in quantity and there was often a bowl left over. The "Yankee" label turns up on a number of plain New England-style dishes in American cookbooks, and generally seems to signal plain ingredients and no sauce rather than any specific regional origin. The instruction to fold and serve it like an omelet borrows presentation from a more formal dish and applies it to leftovers.