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Boiled Potatoes
If the potatoes are to be boiled in their skins, cut a narrow band of skin from the center of the potato and small pieces from the ends. If the potatoes are to be peeled, use a very sharp knife and remove as thin a layer as possible. If the potatoes are very young, the skins may be scraped off. Let the potatoes boil fifteen minutes; then add a tablespoon of salt for every dozen potatoes; boil until tender and remove immediately from the water so that they will not become soggy. They will be improved by being kept hot for an hour or more provided that they are so ventilated that they dry rather than retain moisture.
Boiled potatoes may be served dry or covered with cream sauce. Planned for
A method rather than a formula, and most of it still holds. The only genuinely dated instruction is the timing of the salt.
- The band of skinCutting a strip of peel from the equator and trimming the ends is generally explained as letting steam escape so the skins do not burst, and it does make the jackets easy to slip off once the potatoes are drained if you want them peeled after cooking.
- Salt from the startLittle is gained by waiting fifteen minutes. Salt the water before the potatoes go in, roughly a tablespoon per two quarts, so the seasoning penetrates rather than sitting on the surface. The book's tablespoon per dozen potatoes is in the same general range, though the actual strength depends on how much water the pot holds.
- Start in cold waterThe recipe does not say either way. Potatoes dropped into already boiling water tend to cook unevenly, the outside softening before the centre. Bring them up to the boil with the water.
- Cooking timeFifteen minutes is only the first stage here, not the finish. Medium potatoes take 20 to 25 minutes from the boil, large ones 30 to 40. Test with a thin skewer at the thickest point rather than by the clock.
- Drying them outThis is the hinge of the whole method. Drain the moment they are tender and return them to the dry hot pan over low heat for a minute or two, shaking, until the surfaces go floury. Steam trapped under a lid is what makes boiled potatoes soggy.
- Holding them hotThe advice to keep them an hour with ventilation still works: a warm oven around 200F with the pan uncovered, or a folded cloth laid over the pot in place of the lid so moisture escapes. Waxy varieties will probably hold up better than mealy ones over that length of time.
- Cream sauceThe book means a plain white sauce made with milk or cream rather than anything soured. Two tablespoons each butter and flour to a cup of milk, seasoned with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg.
- YieldReckon on two medium potatoes, about half a pound, per person as a side dish.
Boiled potatoes needed no argument in an American cookbook of this period; they were a cheap, storable staple and forgiving of a coal range whose temperature nobody could measure. What is striking is how much attention the instructions give to peeling thinly and to drying the finished potato. Thin peeling was widely urged on the grounds that the layer just under the skin was the most valuable part, so a sharp knife and a light hand were a matter of household economy as much as taste. The trailing "Planned for" appears to be a printed prompt from the page format rather than part of the recipe.