Potatoes. Fourteen Ways Of Dressing Them[edit | edit source]
General instructions[edit | edit source]
The vegetable kingdom affords no food more wholesome, more easily prepared, or less expensive than the potato, yet, although this most useful vegetable is dressed almost every day, in almost every family-for one plate of potatoes that comes to table as it should, ten are spoiled.
Be careful in your choice of potatoes; no vegetable varies so much in color, size, shape, consistence and flavor.
Choose those of a large size, free from blemishes, and fresh, and buy them in the mould; they must not be wetted till they are cleaned to be cooked. Protect them from the air and frost by laying them in heaps in a cellar, covering them with mats or burying them in sand or in earth. The action of frost is most destructive, if it be con- siderable, the life of the vegetable is destroyed, and the potato speedily rots.
1. Potatoes boiled.
Wash them, but do not pare or cut them unless they are very large; fill a saucepan half full of potatoes of equal size (or make them so by dividing the larger ones), put to them as much cold water as will cover them about an inch: they are sooner boiled, and more savory than when drowned in water; most boiled things are spoiled by having too little water, but pota- toes are often spoiled by too much; they must merely be covered, and a little allowed for waste in boiling) so that they may be just covered at the finish.
Set them on a moderate fire till they boil, then take them off, and set them by the side of the fire to simmer slowly till they are soft enough to admit a fork (place no depen- dence on the usual test of their skin cracking, which, if they are boiled fast, will happen to some potatoes when they are not half done, and the inside is quite hard); then pour the water off (if you let the potatoes remain in the water a moment after they are done enough they will be- come waxy and watery), uncover the saucepan, and set it at such a distance from the fire as will secure it from burning; their superfluous moisture will evaporate, and the potatoes will be perfectly dry and mealy.
You may afterwards place a napkin, folded up to the size of the saucepan's diameter, over the potatoes, to keep them hot and mealy till wanted.
This method of managing potatoes is in every respect equal to steaming them; and they are dressed in half the time.
There is such an infinite variety of sorts and sizes of pota- 9toes, that it is impossible to say how long they will take to cook; the best way is to try them with a fork. Mod- erate sized potatoes will generally be done in fifteen or twenty minutes.
2. Cold Potatoes Fried.
Put a bit of clean dripping into a fryingpan; when it is melted slice in your potatoes with a little pepper and salt, put them on the fire, keep stirring them; when they are quite hot they are ready.
3. Potatoes Boiled and Broiled.
Dress your potatoes as before directed, and put them on a gridiron over a very clear and brisk fire; turn them till they are brown all over, and send them up dry, with melted butter in a cup.
4. Potatoes Fried in Slices or Shavings.
Peel large pota- toes, slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round as you would peel a lemon. Dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping. Take care that your fat and frying pan are quite clean; put the pan on a quick fire, watch it, and as soon as the lard boils, and is still, put in the slices of potatoes, and keep moving them till they are crisp; take them up and lay them to drain on a sieve: send them up with a very little salt sprinkled over them.
5. Potatoes Fried Whole.
When nearly boiled enough, as directed in No. 1, put them into a stewpan with a bit of butter, or some nice clean beef drippings; shake them about often (for fear of burning them) till they are brown and crisp; drain them from the fat.
It will be an improvement to the three last receipts, pre- viously to frying or broiling the potatoes, to flour them and dip them in the yolk of an egg, and then roll them in fine sifted breadcrumbs.
6. Potatoes Mashed.
When your potatoes are thor- oughly boiled, drain dry, pick out every speck, etc., and while hot rub them through a colander into a clean stew- pan, to a pound of potatoes put about half an ounce of butter, and a tablespoonful of milk; do not make them too moist; mix them well together.
7. Potatoes Mashed with Onions.
Prepare some boiled onions, by putting them through a sieve, and mix them with potatoes. In proportioning the onions to the pota- toes, you will be guided by your wish to have more or less of their flavor.
8. Potatoes Excaloped.
Mash potatoes as directed in No. 6, then butter some nice clean scallop shells, or pattypans; put in your potatoes, make them smooth at the top, cross a knife over them, strew a few fine bread- crumbs on them, sprinkle them with a paste brush with a few drops of melted butter, and then set them in a Dutch oven; when they are browned on the top, take them care- fully out of the shells, and brown the other side.
9. Colcannon.
Boil potatoes and greens, or spinach, separately; mash the potatoes, squeeze the greens dry, chop them quite fine, and mix them with the potatoes with a little butter, pepper and salt; put it into a mould, greasing it well first; let it stand in a hot oven for ten minutes
10. Potatoes Roasted.
Wash and dry your potatoes (all of a size), and put them in a tin Dutch oven, or cheese toaster; take care not to put them too near the fire, or they will get burnt on the outside before they are warmed through. Large potatoes will require two hours to roast them.
11. Potatoes Roasted under Meat.
Half boil large pota- toes, drain the water from them, and put them into an earthern dish, or small tin pan under meat that is roast- ing, and baste them with some of the dripping when they are browsed on one side, turn them and brown the other; send them up round the meat, or in a small dish
12. Potato Balls.
Mix mashed potatoes with the yolk of an egg, roll them into balls, flour them, or egg and breadcrumb them, and fry them in clean drippings, or brown them in a Dutch oven.
13. Potato Snow.
The potatoes must be free from spots, and the whitest you can pick out; put them on in cold water; when they begin to crack strain the water from them, and put them into a dean stewpan by the side of the fire till they are quite dry and fall to pieces; rub them through a wire sieve on the dish they are to be sent up in and do not disturb them afterwards.
14. Potato Pie.
Peel and slice your potatoes very thin into a pie dish. Between each layer of potatoes put a little chopped onion (three-quarters of an ounce of onion is sufficient for a pound of potatoes), between each layer sprinkle a little pepper and salt, put in a little water and cut about two ounces of fresh butter into little bits and lay it on The top, cover it close with puff paste. It will take about an hour and a half to bake it.
To Broil Tomatoes.[edit | edit source]
Wash and wipe the tomatoes, and put them on the grid- iron over live coals, with the stem down. When that side is brown turn them and let them cook through. Put them on a hot dish and send quickly to table, to be there sea- soned to taste.
To Bake Tomatoes.[edit | edit source]
Season them with salt and pepper. Flour them over, put them in a deep plate with a little butter and bake in a stove.
To Steam Potatoes.[edit | edit source]
Put them clean-washed, with their skins on, into a steam saucepan, and let The water under them be about half boiling; let them continue to boil rather quickly, until they are done. If the water once relaxes from its heat the potato is sure to be affected, and to become soddened, let the quality be ever so good. A too precipitate boiling is equally disadvantageous, as the higher parts to the sur- face of the root begin to crack and open while the centre part continues unheated and undecomposed.
Mushrooms.[edit | edit source]
Be careful in gathering mushrooms that you have the right kind: they are pink underneath and white on the top, and the skin will peel off easily, but it sticks to the poisonous ones: and the smell and taste of the good ones are not rank. After you have peeled them, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and put them in a stewpan, with a little water and a lump of butter. Let them boil fast ten minutes, and stir in a thickening of flour and cream. They may be fried in butter, or broiled on a gridiron. They are sometimes very abundant in the fall, on ground that has not been ploughed for several years; they ap- pear after a warm rain. They may be peeled, salted, and allowed to stand for some hours before cooking.
Chicken Pot-pie.[edit | edit source]
Take a pair of tender, fat chickens, singe, open and cut them into pieces, by separating all the joints. Wash them through several waters, with eight or ten pared white potatoes, which put into a pan, and, after seasoning highly with salt and black pepper, dredge in three table- spoonful of flour. Stir well together, then line the sides (half way up) of a medium-sized stew-kettle with paste made with two pounds of flour and one of butter. Put the chicken and potato into the kettle with water just suf- ficient to cover them. Roll out some paste for a cover, the size of the kettle, and join it with that on The sides; cut a small opening in the centre, cover the kettle, and hang it over clear fire or set it in the oven, as moist con- venient turn the kettle round occasionally, that the sides may be equally browned. Two hours over a clear fire, or in a quick oven, will cook it. When done, cut the top crust into moderate-sized pieces, and place it round a large dish, then, with a perforated skimmer, take up the chicken and potatoes and place in the centre; cut the side crust and lay it on the top, put the gravy in a sauce- tureen, and send all to table hot.
