No. 2798

Potatoes, Mashed, in Snow, in Puree or Baked

Pommes de Terre en Neige, en Puree ou au Gratin

Boil mealy potatoes, the same as described in No. 2774; pass them through a small hand strainer, or a large pressure strainer if for larger quantities.

For snow Potatoes use the puree as it leaves the strainer, put it in a napkin and form it into a ball inside of this; remove the napkin slowly to have the ball remain whole and serve in a covered vegetable dish.

In Puree.—After removing the potatoes from the strainer, put the puree in a saucepan, adding one ounce of butter for each pound, and a gill of milk; serve.

Baked Mashed Potatoes.—Lay the potatoes in a baking dish, smooth the top nicely, bestrew with bread-crumbs and parmesan, pour butter over and bake in the oven, or substitute potato croquette preparation (No. 2782); dress in the center of a baking dish in pyramid form and mark with a knife in large stripes from top to bottom; brush over with beaten eggs, baste with melted butter and brown in a not too hot oven.

← No. 2797 Potatoes, Marchioness Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2799 Potatoes, Mellow →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three finishes for one preparation: plain riced potato shaped in a cloth, the same potato enriched with butter and milk, or spread in a dish and browned. The cross-references are to Ranhofer's own numbered entries, so the page assumes you already know his boiled potato and his croquette mixture.

Mealy potatoesRanhofer means a dry, high-starch potato — russet or another baking type. Waxy potatoes will not pass cleanly through a strainer and turn gluey when worked.
The strainerA "small hand strainer" here is most likely a tamis or drum sieve worked with a wooden mushroom; a potato ricer or food mill on the fine plate does the same job. A food processor or blender does not — it ruptures the starch cells and produces paste.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. With one ounce of butter per pound of potato this is a restrained purée by later French standards, where the butter can run to a quarter of the potato's weight.
SeasoningThe original names none. Salt the cooking water and correct the purée with salt and white pepper before serving; scalding the milk before it goes in keeps the mixture hot.
The napkinUse a clean, lint-free linen or cotton cloth, wrung out in hot water. Gather it around the hot purée, twist to compact it into a sphere, then peel the cloth back slowly so the ball holds. It must be done at the last minute — it will not sit.
"A not too hot oven"For the egg-washed pyramid, a moderate oven — somewhere around 350–375°F — hot enough to colour the glaze, cool enough that the mound does not crack or slump. The recipe gives no temperature for the crumb-and-parmesan gratin; a hotter oven will brown the top before the interior dries out.
Parmesan and crumbsDry, fine crumbs rather than fresh, and grate the cheese finely so it melts rather than sitting in flecks. Pouring melted butter over before baking is what binds the crust; skip it and the topping stays powdery.
YieldReckon on 6 ounces of raw potato per person as a side dish — roughly 2¼ lb, one ounce of butter per pound and a gill of milk, serves six.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working system set down in numbered order, which is why this entry begins by sending you back to No. 2774 for the boiling and offers No. 2782 as a substitute filling. The three treatments here map onto the French service vocabulary of the period: en neige, "in snow", for the plain white ball turned out of a napkin; en purée for the buttered version; and au gratin for anything crusted with crumbs and cheese and browned. The napkin-moulded snow potato belongs to an era of tableside presentation at restaurants where a vegetable arrived in a covered silver dish and was expected to look composed; it survives now mainly in the older French repertory. The pyramid scored in stripes with a knife and glazed with egg is the same decorative logic applied to Ranhofer's croquette mixture, which contains egg yolk and so sets firm enough to hold a shape under heat.