Boiled Potatoes - Fried Potatoes - Chipped Potatoes - Pommes de Terre Anna - Souffle Potatoes Potato Salad With and Without Meat

Boiling Potatoes. Every cook boils potatoes at least once a day, and usually starts with a mistake. Potatoes should not be boiled - they should be steamed, if they are to turn out "floury" and delicious. Of course, ordinary English potatoes are rarely of good quality, they are naturally watery, and the national fondness for boiling and not steaming them adds to their already liquid propensities. If possible, I should advise a housekeeper to buy Dutch or vitelotte potatoes; these can be purchased in England, but very few people know that they are infinitely preferable to the home-grown article.

If steaming is out of the question, the potatoes must be boiled. In that case, whether old or new, they should be plunged into boiling water, just enough to cover them. And that water must be decidedly salted in advance. It is useless to add salt afterwards in boiling potatoes. When the vegetables feel soft, strain off all the water, and put them back in the saucepan, or rest them on a sieve over the empty saucepan, leaving them for two or three minutes, so that they may become thoroughly dry and floury.

Fried Potatoes. Fried potatoes are a luxury that is sometime a "doubtful" quantity. Cooks are inclined to make three fundamental mistakes: (1) They do not use the right kind of fat for frying; (2) they do not use enough fat; and (3) they do not thoroughly dry the potatoes before frying them.

The best fat to use for fried, chipped, or souffle potatoes is pork fat. It is far less greasy than that of beef or mutton, and it is possible to eat potatoes fried in pork fat either hot or cold, without any taste or smell of grease clinging to them.

To make ordinary chipped potatoes, cut them into circular or oval shapes, not too thick, and using a cutter if possible, and put them into cold water for ten minutes. Drain them, dry them in linen, which absorbs moisture completely, and fry them in fat which is deep, and not quite boiling, though a blue smoke should rise from it. When the potatoes rise to the top of the fat they are cooked, and should be lifted out at once. Serve hot or cold.

Pommes de Terre Anna. This is a particularly simple and delicious method of serving potatoes for family purposes. Cut each potato in half lengthways, slice these halves into thin rings, about one-eighth of an inch thick, wash, and dry them in a piece of linen. Well butter a mould or ordinary fireproof dish; then place a layer of potatoes in the dish, completely covering the bottom. Season carefully, and spread a coat of butter over the layer. Proceed in the same way with a second layer making the potatoes overlap each other, and reversing the lay of the rings in each layer. Make five or six layers in this way, seasoning and buttering each one. Cover the dish, and bake in a good oven for thirty minutes. Turn the whole over to equalise the colouring, if necessary. Stand the solid cake of potato on a saucepan-lid to drain any superfluous butter away; then tilt the whole on to a dish, and serve very hot.

Souffle Potatoes. Trim the potatoes square; cut them in slices an eighth of an inch thick. Wash them in cold water, thoroughly dry, and fry them in moderately hot fat. It is important that the fat is not too hot, as the souffle effect is only gained by re-frying in fat several degrees hotter. When the potatoes rise to the top of the fat they are cooked; drain them, and leave them, if necessary, till the evening. When they are wanted, prepare some fresh and hotter fat, and plunge them in it. This second immersion effects the "puffing," which results from the sudden contact with intense heat, and is effected whether they go straight from one pan to the other, or are left all day to cool. Dry in a stretched piece of linen till free from all grease; salt moderately, and serve.

Potato Salad (with meat). English cooks, on the whole, do not realise that beef which is used for bouillon, or soup, is very excellent in the form of a salad, with potato or other vegetables. When the meat is cold cut it into small dice, boil some potatoes, and cut into rings, having twice the quantity of potatoes to beef. Heap roughly in a glass dish, and pour a good dressing over.

In making a salad-dressing it is not generally known that the oil and vinegar should be mixed before being put on the salad. In a cup or deep soup-plate put some salt, black pepper, and mustard. Pour vinegar on these, using one spoonful of vinegar to three of oil - a proportion that should be rigidly followed. Mix the vinegar and seasoning thoroughly together; then pour on the oil, and beat all well, till mixed. Pour this dressing over the salad, sprinkle a little dried and chopped parsley over it, and serve at once.

Potato Salad without meat is made in precisely the same manner; the potatoes can be mixed with other cold, cooked vegetables with advantage, and the dressing remains the same. Cold potatoes are excellent when used for a salad.

These recipes are but a few of hundreds in which potatoes find a different form of cooking. If English cooks will try these recipes, which are suited to everyday household meals, I feel sure that families will grow fond of this nutritious form of food.