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Potatoes En Coquilles
Wipe six good-sized potatoes, place on a roasting pan and bake in oven for forty-five minutes, remove, then cut in two lengthwise. Scoop out all the soft part and press it through sieve into a saucepan, add two ounces grated, cooked lean ham, one teaspoon chopped parsley, one ounce butter and two egg yolks. Season with a half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons white pepper, half saltspoon grated nutmeg, and briskly stir while cooking on range for five minutes. Beat up whites of the two eggs to a stiff froth, add to the preparation, gently mix, then fill up cavities of the twelve half shells. Place on a tin, sprinkle a little grated Parmesan cheese over, set in oven for ten minutes, remove and serve.
A twice-baked potato with ham and a lightened, souffle-style filling. The instructions are complete; only the units and the unstated oven heat need translation.
- Oven heatThe original gives no temperature, as books of this kind often did not. Baking the whole potatoes at around 400F suits the stated forty-five minutes for a good-sized russet, and the filled shells can go back into the same heat for the final ten minutes.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So three saltspoons of white pepper is 3/4 teaspoon, and half a saltspoon of nutmeg is an eighth of a teaspoon. That is a assertive amount of pepper for six potatoes; taste the mixture before the whites go in.
- The hingeThe recipe has you stir briskly over the range for five minutes, then beat the whites and "gently mix" them in. Let the potato mixture cool a little first and fold quickly: whites added to a near-boiling base deflate, and you get a dense mash rather than a puff.
- Sieve or ricerPressing hot potato through a sieve gives a fluffy, lump-free puree. A ricer does the same job faster. Do not use a food processor: the starch turns gluey.
- Scooping the shells"Scoop out all the soft part" means all of it that comes away freely. Leave a thin lining of flesh against the skin or the shells will tear when you fill them.
- The hamTwo ounces of cooked lean ham, grated on the coarse side of a box grater or minced very fine. A dry-cured or baked ham works; wet-cured deli ham adds water and will slacken the filling.
- YieldTwelve halves, enough for six as a first course or side dish, or four as a light supper. They are best straight from the oven, since the whites deflate as they cool.
En coquilles is simply French for "in shells" — in professional kitchens the phrase usually meant a mixture served in a scallop shell or ramekin, and here the potato skin does duty as the coquille. Leftover lean ham, two eggs and a spoonful of parsley turn baked potatoes into a garnish grand enough to serve alongside a roast. Books like this one routinely gave French names to dishes an ordinary household could manage, and the beaten-white lightening marks it as a cousin of the potato souffle rather than of the plain stuffed potato.