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Stuffed Potatoes
Cook as above. Cut off end carefully, keeping the hull from being broken. Scoop out potato. Season with butter, pepper and salt and a little grated onion. Fill hulls full. Run in oven in pan to season. Serve hot. Cheese may be used grated instead of onion, or both, if liked
A twice-baked potato in its shortest possible form. The recipe assumes you have just read the baked potato entry above it, so the first and most important step is missing from the text you see here.
- "Cook as above"This points back to the baked potato entry, i.e. bake the potatoes whole first: scrub, prick the skins, and bake until a skewer slides through easily (in a modern oven, roughly an hour at around 400F, though the book gives no temperature here). Russets or other floury baking potatoes hold their shape as hulls; waxy potatoes collapse.
- Cutting the hullSlicing off one end and scooping through the opening, as written, is fiddly. Halving the potato lengthwise is easier and gives a sturdier shell. Either way, leave about a quarter inch of flesh attached to the skin or the hull will tear when you fill it.
- Scoop while hotPotato flesh mashes smooth straight out of the oven and turns gluey once it has cooled and been worked. Scoop and season immediately, and use a fork or ricer rather than a food processor.
- Seasoning quantitiesNone are given. For four medium potatoes, about 3 tablespoons butter, a teaspoon of grated onion, salt and pepper to taste. A few tablespoons of hot milk or cream loosen the mixture if it is stiff, though the original does not call for it.
- "Run in oven to season"Apparently a short return to the heat to set the surface and marry the flavors rather than a second full bake; no time or temperature is given. Ten to fifteen minutes in a hot oven is enough; broil the last minute or two if you want browning.
- Grated onionRaw grated onion in a filling that only reheats briefly stays sharp. If you want it mellow, soften it in the butter first, which is a departure from the text.
- CheeseThe recipe specifies only grated cheese; a firm, well-flavoured cheese such as cheddar suits it. Fold most of it into the filling and reserve a little for the top so it browns.
- YieldOne potato per person as a side dish, two if it is the center of a light supper.
Mrs. Wilson wrote her column and cookbooks in the years around the First World War, when the U.S. Food Administration was urging households to lean on potatoes to spare wheat and meat. Stuffing a baked potato back into its own skin is an economy dish in the plainest sense, using butter, an onion, and a scrap of cheese to turn a starch into something worth serving at table. The terse style here, which assumes the reader has just worked through the entry above, is characteristic of recipes carried over from newspaper columns.