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Steamed Potatoes (Prepared as for boiling put)
Steamed potatoes are prepared as for boiling, put in a closed vessel having a perforated bottom over a kettle of boiling water. They will require from thirty to forty minutes to cook.
A method note rather than a formal recipe, and it still works as written. The only real questions are what "prepared as for boiling" meant and why the time is so long.
- "Prepared as for boiling"In period usage that generally meant pared, eyes and blemishes cut out, and held in cold water until wanted so they do not darken; the book's own boiling entry would give the exact sense. Whole potatoes are the likely assumption; scrubbed skin-on potatoes steam just as well.
- The vesselA closed pan with a perforated bottom set over a kettle of boiling water is a steamer basket or insert. Any pot with a folding steamer, a colander clamped over boiling water, or a stacked bamboo steamer does the same job. The lid matters more than the hardware.
- Water levelThe water must not touch the potatoes or they are boiled, not steamed, and they waterlog. Keep an inch or so in the bottom and top it up with boiling water if a long steam runs it dry.
- Thirty to forty minutesThat is right for whole potatoes of a good size and is the one figure worth trusting here. Quartered potatoes take 15 to 20 minutes, and 1-inch cubes about 12. Test with a skewer at the thickest point rather than by the clock.
- SaltSteam carries no salt, so unlike boiling there is no seasoning of the interior. Salt them after cooking, or toss the hot potatoes with butter and salt while the surface is still dry enough to take it.
- Why steam at allSteamed potatoes hold their shape and stay drier than boiled ones, which makes them better for salads and for mashing. Let them stand uncovered a minute after cooking so the surface moisture flashes off.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity; reckoning about 6 oz of potato per person as a side dish, 2 lb serves five.
Loose-leaf cook books like Mrs. Fryer's were sold so that a household could add, remove and reorder pages, and they tend to include short method entries of exactly this kind alongside full recipes. Steaming was pushed hard by domestic-science writers around the turn of the twentieth century on the argument that boiling leached out the potato's mineral salts, a nutritional claim that predates any real understanding of vitamins but happens to point in a defensible direction: less water contact does mean less loss of water-soluble nutrients. The perforated-bottom vessel described here was a standard piece of American kitchen tinware, and the same design survives essentially unchanged as the pot-and-insert steamers still on sale today.