Potato Puffs
To two cupfuls of mashed potatoes, add three tablespoonfuls of cream, salt and pepper to taste, and the beaten yolks of two eggs, and stir over the fire until hot and well mixed. Take from the fire, add the whites of the eggs whipped to a dry froth, drop in heaps in a greased baking pan and brown in a quick oven.
A straightforward potato soufflé mixture, baked in free-standing heaps rather than a dish. The only real technique is keeping the whipped whites intact.
- Quick ovenRead this as 425-450F. The puffs need immediate heat to set their surface before the air in the whites escapes; a moderate oven gives you flat, dense mounds.
- Fold, do not stirThe recipe says "add" the whites, but the hot potato base will collapse them if you beat them in. Cool the base to warm rather than hot, then fold in the whites in two additions with a spatula.
- "Dry froth"This means stiff peaks, not the point where the whites turn grainy and begin to weep. Whites beaten past dry will not incorporate smoothly.
- The potato baseTwo cupfuls of mashed potato means about 1 lb of potatoes cooked and mashed. It should be dry and smooth; riced floury potatoes work far better than a waxy variety, and any lumps will stay lumps.
- CreamThree tablespoons of cream. Period cream varied in richness and may well have been thinner than today's heavy cream. If the mash was already made with milk and butter, hold back some of the cream so the mixture stays stiff enough to hold a heap.
- ShapingDrop in mounds about 2 inches across, spaced well apart so the heat circulates. A greased pan is as specified, but parchment saves the bottoms from sticking as the egg sets.
- Timing and yieldNo time is given: expect 12-18 minutes, until well browned and just firm. Two cupfuls makes roughly 8 puffs, enough for four as a side dish. Serve hot from the oven, as they will settle somewhat on standing.
- Why it sits in the Game chapterPlaced among the game dishes, presumably as an accompaniment to roast birds. Nothing in the method depends on game, so treat it as a general side.
Potato puffs belong to a long-running taste for lightening plain food with beaten egg white, the same impulse behind the era's souffl"" fritters and "snows." Versions appear in English and American cookbooks well before the 1890s, and many are a way of using up cooked mashed potato. Dropping the mixture in individual heaps rather than baking it in one dish gave the cook something that looked composed on a platter. Its placement in a game chapter reflects how such books were often organized around the service of a meal rather than the technique: a roast bird called for a starch that could be spooned out hot and browned.