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Variations
1. A variation of this is to line the scooped-out potato with the mashed potato mixture. Then break a fresh egg carefully into the center and bake until just set. 2. Another variation would be to use a fillet of cooked fish cooked with wellflavored white sauce instead of an egg.
These are two finishing variations on a stuffed baked potato, written for a cook who already has the parent recipe in hand. The instructions assume you have baked potatoes, halved or capped them, scooped the flesh and mashed it with butter and cream.
- The hinge: hollow deep enoughThe scooped cavity needs to hold a whole egg without it running over the rim, so it helps to press the mashed potato into a wall rather than a flat bed. A shallow well means white spilling onto the pan and a yolk that sets before the potato has reheated.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given in the text. Modern equivalent: 375-400F; the aim is to reheat the potato and set the egg white at the same time.
- Timing the egg"Just set" means the white is opaque and firm and the yolk still soft, roughly 12-18 minutes depending on egg size and how hot the potato was when the egg went in. Residual heat in the potato keeps cooking the egg after it leaves the oven, so pull it a shade underdone.
- Break the egg into a cup firstCracking directly into the potato risks shell fragments in a cavity you cannot easily fish them out of, and a broken yolk. Slide it in from a small cup or ramekin.
- "Well-flavored white sauce"A white sauce of the familiar kind: equal butter and flour cooked together, milk whisked in, seasoned with salt and pepper; mustard, lemon or cayenne are common seasonings with fish. Make it thick enough to coat a spoon or it will soak straight into the potato.
- The fish fillingCooked white fish or salmon suits it. Bone it carefully, fold it into the hot sauce off the heat, and warm the filled potatoes through for 10-15 minutes rather than baking them hard, since the fish is already cooked and will dry out.
- YieldCount one whole potato per person as a light supper dish, or a half potato each as a side. The egg version does not hold or reheat and should go straight to the table.
Stuffed baked potatoes were a staple of the late-Victorian and Edwardian household because they turned one baked potato and a few spoonfuls of leftovers into a dish that could be sent to table looking composed. Cook books lean heavily on this kind of construction: a base recipe followed by variations that swap the filling rather than teaching a new method. The egg baked in a hollowed vegetable is a long-standing trick of the same family as eggs baked in tomatoes or in mushroom caps, where the ramekin is simply replaced by something edible. The fish variation is pure economy.