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Creamed Old Potatoes
Take four cooked potatoes of medium size; one and one-half cup of milk; two teaspoons of cornstarch; one-fourth teaspoon of salt; one teaspoon of butter. Wet the cornstarch with two tablespoons of the milk, place the balance of the milk in a graniteware kettle, and when it boils stir in the cornstarch, which will thicken it to a cream. Having cut the potatoes into small pieces, add them to the thickened milk, and let them cook gently for three or four minutes, stirring carefully to prevent burning. Add the seasoning, pour the preparation into a serving dish, and dust lightly with pepper.
A thrifty way to use up cold boiled potatoes, thickened with cornstarch rather than a butter-and-flour roux. It comes together in under ten minutes and needs almost no adjustment.
- "Old potatoes"This means last season's stored potatoes, dry and mealy by late winter, as opposed to new potatoes lifted young. Any floury or all-purpose potato works; waxy varieties hold their shape better and break down less in the sauce.
- Graniteware kettleEnamel-coated iron or steel. The coating is non-reactive with milk and less prone to scorching than bare iron; a heavy-bottomed saucepan is the equivalent.
- Cornstarch slurryWetting the cornstarch with cold milk before it meets the hot is the whole technique; dumped in dry it will seize into lumps. Stir it in off a hard boil, then bring back just to a simmer for a minute so the raw starch taste cooks out.
- Do not hard-boil the milkMilk scorches on the bottom of the pan long before it looks burnt, and the flavour carries through the whole dish. Keep it at a bare simmer and stir with a flat-edged spoon that reaches the corners.
- Seasoning at the endThe salt and butter go in after the potatoes have heated through, as the recipe directs. A teaspoon of butter for four potatoes is modest by current taste; two or three is not out of place.
- TimingThree or four minutes is enough to heat cooked potatoes through. Longer and the cubes start disintegrating into the sauce, which turns it to a thick paste.
- YieldFour medium potatoes and a cup and a half of milk serves three or four as a side dish.
Creamed dishes of this sort fill the vegetable chapters of American cookbooks, and the distinction between "old" and "new" potatoes was a live one in a household that bought by the peck in autumn and worked through the bin until spring. Cornstarch, commercially manufactured in the United States from the 1840s, gave cooks a quicker thickener than a flour roux and one that produced a paler, glossier sauce. The Butterick Publishing Company was better known for dress patterns and The Delineator.