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Timbales of Potatoes
Boil in two quarts water six medium, peeled potatoes with a teaspoon salt for thirty minutes; thoroughly drain, then press through a potato masher into a saucepan, add two egg yolks, half teaspoon salt, two salt-spoons pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Set pan on fire and sharply stir with spatula while heating five minutes. Remove, lightly butter six individual moulds, then fill with the puree, neatly smooth surface, spread a very little butter over, set in oven to bake ten minutes. Remove, unmould on a dish and serve.
A plain potato purée baked in small moulds and turned out — the sort of side dish that lived or died on how dry the potatoes were. A few of the measures need translating.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So the seasoning is half a teaspoon salt, half a teaspoon pepper, and a quarter teaspoon grated nutmeg.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A hot oven, around 400F, suits the ten minutes specified and will give a light crust on the buttered surface; a cooler oven will heat them through but is less likely to set a crust.
- Dry the potatoes properlyThis is the hinge. After draining, return the potatoes to the dry pan over low heat for a minute to drive off steam. A wet purée will slump the moment it leaves the mould.
- Masher versus ricer"Press through a potato masher" suggests a perforated-disc masher rather than a modern waffle-head one, which works something like a coarse ricer. A ricer or food mill gives the smoothest result; a food processor turns potato to glue.
- The five minutes on the fireStirring the yolks into the hot purée over heat both thickens the mixture and takes the raw edge off the egg. Keep it moving with a spatula so the yolks do not scramble on the pan bottom.
- MouldsTimbale moulds are small straight-sided metal cups, roughly 4 to 6 fl oz. Ramekins, dariole moulds or a muffin tin all stand in. Butter them well and, if you want insurance, dust with fine breadcrumbs before filling.
- UnmouldingLet them rest a minute out of the oven, run a thin knife round the edge, then invert onto the serving dish. Serving them straight from the ramekin is perfectly reasonable if they resist.
- YieldSix moulds, so six servings as a side dish alongside a roast or grilled meat.
Timbale is usually traced to the French for a kettledrum, by way of the drum-shaped metal mould the dish is baked in — though the French word also carried the sense of a metal cup. Either way, the name describes the vessel, not the filling, which is why nineteenth-century cookbooks offer timbales of macaroni, of chicken, of fish and of rice with equal seriousness. Small individual moulds suited the service à la russe that had taken over grand dining rooms by the late 1800s, where each guest received a plated portion rather than helping themselves from a communal dish, and a neat turned-out cylinder of potato purée looked considerably better on a plate than a spoonful of mash.