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Potatoes in Cases
Wash thoroughly eight or nine potatoes (good-sized ones and mealy), and place them in a quick oven to bake; then take them out and cut off a round of the peel the size of fifty-cent piece from the end of them and carefully scoop out all the inside pulp; mash this and pass it through a fine sieve into a saucepan, mixing in a breakfast cupful of cream and milk in equal proportions and a ounce and a half of warmed butter; place the pan over a slow fire and boil gently, adding a little at a time the whites of a couple of eggs whipped to a froth. Fill up the potato skins with this preparation and put them in the oven until they have become thoroughly warmed, then place them in paper cases, arranged on a napkin on a dish, and serve.
A stuffed baked potato dressed for the dining room. The technique is straightforward; the two things worth watching are the heat when the egg whites go in and how thin you leave the shells.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400-425F for the initial bake. Good-sized mealy potatoes will take up to an hour, until a skewer slides through with no resistance.
- Breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, so about one cup of liquid total, half cream and half milk. Add it gradually rather than all at once; the amount of pulp from nine potatoes varies enough that you may want less.
- An ounce and a half of butterThree tablespoons.
- The size of a fifty-cent pieceAbout 1 1/4 inches across. Scooping a whole potato through a hole that small takes a long-handled teaspoon and patience. Leave a good 1/4 inch of pulp against the skin or the shell will collapse when you refill it.
- The egg whites are the hingeWhipped whites folded into a pan on the heat will curdle into threads if the mixture is anywhere near a real boil. Pull the pan to the lowest possible heat, or off it entirely, and fold them in a spoonful at a time. "Boil gently" here means barely trembling.
- Pass through a sieveNot optional if you want the smooth texture the recipe is after. A ricer or food mill does the same job faster. Never use a food processor on potatoes; the starch turns to glue.
- The final reheatThe recipe asks only that they be warmed through, so a moderately hot oven for ten to fifteen minutes will do. Note the order: the oven first, then the paper cases.
- Paper casesStiff pleated paper cups. Modern equivalents are sold as ramekin liners or large baking cups; they are presentation only and the potatoes sit in them at the table.
- YieldEight or nine potatoes, one per person as a side dish.
Serving a food back in its own hollowed skin suited nineteenth-century plated service, where individual portions had to leave the kitchen looking composed rather than being carved at the table. Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel from 1893 and his cook book appeared in 1896, drawing on the repertoire of a grand hotel kitchen; the last line -- the paper case and the folded napkin on the dish -- points to that setting. Neither does much for the potato, but both signal restaurant service rather than a plain baked potato. Potatoes prepared this way have travelled since under various names as stuffed potatoes; the addition of whipped whites, which lightens the purée toward a soufflé, is what distinguishes this version from a simple mash returned to its shell.