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May 21
Menu: Oloronnaise Potage; Broiled Shad Roe *Anna Potatoes; tatoes.; Duckling Braise with Cherries; Fresh Asparagus, Swiss; Weimar Pudding; Coffee Anna Potatoes-Peel, wash and drain 4 good-sized, sound, raw poSlice them with a Saratogachip potato machine. If none is at hand, slice them as fine as possible. Grate 2 ounces of Parmesan or Swiss cheese. Heat 2 tablespoons Crisco in a small frying pan, remove pan from fire and cover bottom with light layer of potatoes. Mix teaspoon salt with 2 saltspoons white pepper, sprinkle a little over potatoes, spread a little cheese over potatoes, and place few bits Crisco over cheese. Arrange another layer of potatoes-and so on till all are employed. Cover pan, place on moderate fire for 5 minutes. Turn them over with cake turner; let them cook again 3 minutes, then place in hot oven for 10 minTurn on hot dish and serve. utes.
The page has come down to us badly mangled: the heading says "Coffee," the body is the beginning of Pommes Anna, and the text breaks off mid-word after the slicing. What survives is the preparation stage only, so treat it as a fragment and finish the dish from a complete recipe.
- The text is incomplete"4 good-sized, sound, raw po-" is potatoes, and the instructions stop once they are sliced. Nothing here tells you the pan, the fat, the oven or the time; the rest of the recipe is missing.
- Saratoga chip potato machineA slicer sold for cutting potatoes thin enough for Saratoga chips; the exact form varied. A mandoline on its thinnest setting or the slicing disc of a food processor does the same job.
- "Sound" potatoesPeriod shorthand for firm, unsprouted, unblemished tubers with no green under the skin. A waxy or all-purpose potato holds its shape in layers better than a floury baking potato.
- Do not rinse the slicesRinsing the slices -- the surface starch is what helps glue the layers into a cake, so it is usual to slice straight into the pan rather than leave the slices standing in water. Note that this recipe as printed directs you to peel, wash and drain the potatoes first.
- The fatIf this is a Crisco book, the pan would have been greased with hydrogenated shortening and more brushed between layers. Clarified butter is the classical choice and browns better; the milk solids in plain butter scorch at the temperature the dish wants.
- YieldFour good-sized potatoes make a cake that serves four as a side dish, cut in wedges and turned out upside down so the browned face is uppermost.
Potatoes Anna is a French restaurant dish of the Second Empire, generally traced to the kitchens of Paris in the 1860s and usually said to be named for one of the celebrated demi-mondaines of the day, Anna Deslions being the name most often attached to it; the attribution is traditional rather than documented. Its use of Crisco places it in time: Procter and Gamble's hydrogenated shortening arrived in 1911 and had to be shown doing everything butter and lard did, including greasing the pan for a dish whose entire reputation rests on a well-browned crust. The "Saratoga chip potato machine" dates the page just as firmly. Saratoga chips, the fried potato slices named for Saratoga Springs, New York, were popular enough by 1900 that a domestic gadget for cutting them could be mentioned by name, though the recipe allows for the cook who has none at hand.
The text has been clipped at both ends — the potatoes themselves are never quantified, and the header word "Grate" is all that survives of the title, which tells you the potatoes were grated or sliced very thin. Read it as a small skillet potato-and-cheese cake for two, and expect to supply the missing measurements yourself.
- The missing potatoesFor a small frying pan (8 inches) figure about 1 1/2 lb of raw potatoes, peeled and either coarsely grated or sliced paper-thin. Waxy potatoes hold their layers; russets will collapse into a mash, which is not what the recipe is after.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is usually reckoned a quarter teaspoon, so "2 saltspoons white pepper" is about 1/2 teaspoon — a lot of pepper for a dish this size.
- CriscoCrisco in 1913 was hydrogenated cottonseed oil, sold as a butter and lard substitute. Any solid shortening works; butter tastes better here and browns the crust more, and 2 tablespoons of oil will also do.
- Fire and oven temperaturesA "moderate fire" on the stovetop means medium, not high — the cheese between the layers should melt before the bottom colours. "Hot oven" in this period is generally reckoned somewhere around 400–450F.
- Squeeze grated potatoes dryIf you grate rather than slice, wring the shreds in a towel first. Wet potato steams instead of frying and the cake will not hold together when you turn it.
- The turnFive minutes is not long enough to set a cake this thick. Wait until the edges look dry and the underside slides freely in the pan before attempting the flip with a cake turner; a plate-and-invert is safer than a spatula if the pan is full.
- Timing overallThe stated 5 + 3 + 10 minutes will leave thin-sliced potatoes barely cooked. Allow 8–10 minutes per side on the stove and 15–20 minutes in the oven, and test with a knife tip through the centre.
- CheeseTwo ounces of Parmesan or Swiss cheese grated fine is right for this quantity. Both are salty, so hold back some of the teaspoon of salt until you taste.
This page belongs to the "Calendar of Dinners" in the back portion of The Story of Crisco (1913), Procter & Gamble's book-length advertisement for its new hydrogenated cottonseed shortening — a dated menu for every day of the year, with recipes in which Crisco replaces butter or lard. The dish itself is a home-kitchen version of the layered potato gratins of French cooking, started on the stovetop and finished in the oven. The truncated header and the stray "May 22" are artifacts of the page's layout, which is why the potato quantity and part of the title have gone missing here.