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Potatoes with Butter
Peel, wash and drain twelve small, even-sized potatoes and boil in a quart boiling water with half teaspoon salt for thirty minutes. Drain, place in a frying pan with a level tablespoon butter, gently turn them over for two minutes and serve.
A plain boiled-and-buttered potato, written for cooks who knew what "small, even-sized" meant. The only judgement calls are size and doneness.
- Scale and yieldTwelve small potatoes is roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb, enough for four as a side. Even sizing matters more than the count: mismatched potatoes will fall apart at one end of the pan while the others are still firm.
- Thirty minutes is a maximum, not a ruleNew potatoes or small waxy varieties are tender in 15 to 20 minutes. Test with a skewer at 15 and drain the moment it slides in without resistance; a half hour will leave you turning mush in the frying pan.
- Choose a waxy potatoThe recipe depends on the potatoes holding their shape through boiling and then rolling in fat. Waxy or all-purpose types work; a floury baking potato will crumble.
- Water quantityA quart barely covers 2 lb of potatoes. Use enough water to cover them by an inch and keep the salt proportional to the original's rate, half a teaspoon per quart.
- Dry them before the butterAfter draining, return the potatoes to the hot empty pot for a minute so the surface steam flashes off. Butter clings to a dry potato and slides off a wet one.
- The butter stepOne level tablespoon for twelve potatoes is a thin gloss, in keeping with the period. Two minutes over moderate heat is enough to coat them; if you want any browning, allow five to six minutes and accept that some will break.
- FinishingThe original stops at butter. Salt, pepper and chopped parsley at the table would not be out of place.
Potatoes boiled and then rolled in butter in a pan sit at the very bottom of the hierarchy of potato cookery that early twentieth-century cookbooks laid out at length: boiled, mashed, riced, duchesse, croquette, souffl hat even even-sized specimens reflects a kitchen buying by the peck rather than the graded, uniform bag.