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Potatoes on the Half-Shell
Bake large, smooth potatoes; cut each in half lengthwise; scrape out the inside, leaving the skins whole. Beat the potato to a cream with melted butter and cream; season with pepper and salt, and fill the "shells," rounding the potato on top. Put a speck of butter on each half and brown slightly in the oven. Potatoes on the half-shell are more delicate than the ordinary baked potato.
A twice-baked potato, described before the name existed. The recipe assumes you know how to bake a potato and how much butter is decent, so the details worth pinning down are temperature, texture and the handling of the skins.
- Oven temperatureNo number is given. Bake the potatoes at 400-425F for 50-60 minutes until a skewer slides through easily; the second, browning pass wants the same heat for 15-20 minutes, or a few minutes under the broiler if you want colour fast.
- Choose the right potatoThe recipe specifies only "large, smooth." A floury baker (russet or similar) suits the dish best; waxy red or new potatoes do not beat to a cream and turn gluey when worked.
- Leave the shells thick enoughThe hinge of the dish. Scrape out the flesh but leave about a quarter-inch clinging to the skin, or the shells collapse when you refill them. Working while the potatoes are still hot makes the flesh easier to mash and the skins less brittle.
- Butter and cream quantitiesNone are stated. For four medium potatoes, roughly 3 tablespoons butter and 1/3 to 1/2 cup warm cream gives a workable result. Warm the cream first; cold liquid stiffens the mash and encourages overworking.
- Do not beat too longThe recipe names no tool. Whatever you use, a stand mixer or food processor develops the starch and gives you wallpaper paste. Mash, then fold in the fat and cream.
- YieldTwo halves per person as a side dish; four potatoes serve four generously.
- A note on the section headingThis appears under Canning and Preserving; the reason is unclear, and nothing here keeps. Serve the same day.
Stuffed and re-baked potatoes turn up throughout late nineteenth and early twentieth century American cookery, usually as a way of making a plain baked potato fit for company: the flesh is enriched, seasoned and returned to its own skin so it arrives at the table looking deliberate. The borrowed name is the giveaway "on the half-shell" belonged to oysters and clams served in one valve, and applying it to a potato was a small piece of menu flattery. Loose-leaf cookbooks like this one were published in binders so that a cook could add, remove and reorder pages, which may be how a potato dish came to be filed among the preserves, though that is only a guess.