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Broiled Potatoes-Cold
Cut in slices or small pieces. Put tablespoon of butter in saucepan. When hot put in potatoes. Mix thoroughly with butter until fat is absorbed. Sprinkle with salt and serve at once. A little grated onion can be added to butter before putting in potatoes.
A leftover-potato saute in three lines. The whole thing depends on starting with cold cooked potatoes and not crowding them.
- "Broiled" here means pan-friedWhatever the title says, nothing in the method suggests a broiler element: butter in a pan, potatoes mixed until the fat is absorbed. Treat it as a stovetop dish.
- Use a skillet, not a saucepanThe recipe says saucepan, but the method (mixing slices with butter until the fat is absorbed, then serving at once) wants surface contact. A heavy 10-inch skillet does it better.
- The potatoes must be coldCold boiled or baked potatoes hold their shape and dry at the cut surface, which is what lets them brown. Warm ones shed steam and starch and collapse into mash.
- One tablespoon is thinThe recipe gives one tablespoon of butter and no potato quantity. For a full skillet you will probably want more, added in stages as the first is absorbed.
- "Until fat is absorbed"That phrase is the only timing cue the recipe gives. Judge by the pan rather than the clock; the recipe asks you to mix the potatoes thoroughly with the butter.
- Grated onion burns fastGrated onion in hot butter scorches and turns bitter quickly. Keep the heat moderate; the recipe has it go into the butter just before the potatoes.
- Season at the endSalting sliced potatoes before they hit the pan draws out moisture and works against browning. Salt in the pan just before serving, as written.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. Scale to the leftovers you have; this is a side dish rather than a main.
The cold-potato saute has many names in the period literature -- lyonnaise, hashed brown, German fried -- and the distinctions between them in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century books are not consistent. This entry is the plainest version of the type: yesterday's boiled or baked potatoes, butter, salt, optional onion.