Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Baked Potatoes with Breadcrumbs
Baked Potatoes with Breadcrumbs
Peel, boil and mash a pound or so of potatoes passing them through a sieve; then pile them upon a dish in the form of a small cone, sprinkle over them some breadcrumbs, and pour over a little warmed butter; put the dish in the oven and allow it to remain there for a few minutes until the breadcrumbs have become well-browned, remove, and serve in the dish in which they are baked.
A dish of mashed potato browned under a crust of buttered crumbs, written for cooks who already knew how to mash a potato. The gaps are in temperature, seasoning and quantity.
- The hinge: dry the potatoesDrain the boiled potatoes and return them to the hot dry pan for a minute to drive off steam before sieving. Wet mash slumps out of the cone shape and turns the crumb layer soggy instead of crisp.
- Use a ricer or sieve, not a machinePassing through a sieve, as written, is the point: it gives a fluffy mash that holds a shape. A food processor or stick blender develops the starch into glue.
- Oven temperatureOscar gives none, and only says 'a few minutes'. A hot oven, around 425F, will colour the crumbs quickly; a moderate oven risks drying them before they brown. A broiler for two or three minutes works if the potato is still hot.
- SeasoningNo salt, pepper or milk is mentioned. Salt the cooking water, and beat in a splash of hot milk or cream plus salt and white pepper before shaping, or the interior will taste flat next to the buttered crust.
- BreadcrumbsBreadcrumbs of this period generally meant dry crumbs grated from stale bread rather than the fine commercial kind. Coarser crumbs tend to brown better.
- "A little warmed butter"Reckon on 2 to 3 tablespoons melted for a pound of potatoes, poured over evenly so no crumb is left dry; unbuttered crumbs scorch rather than brown.
- Dish and yieldBake and serve in one dish, as instructed. A pound of potatoes serves three as a side, or two generously.
Oscar Tschirky's book collects the standing repertoire of a large hotel kitchen, and this is a plain example of the gratin idea in its simplest form: cooked food, a crumb topping, butter, and a short blast of heat to colour it. The technique long predates the Waldorf, and let a kitchen turn already-boiled potatoes into something presentable quickly. That it is served in its baking dish is worth noting in a book otherwise full of elaborate service.