How To Bake Potatoes

CHOOSE smooth potatoes, of equal size so far as may be, and large, for a small potato baked is apt to be nothing but skin. Wash the potatoes clean, dry with a cloth, chip off the skin at either end to allow the steam to escape and help to the potatoes mealiness, put in a hot oven and bake, allowing from forty to sixty minutes for the roasting. The difference in the quality of potatoes, and difference in size, and also in the temperature of the oven, require considerable latitude in the time for cooking.

How To Boil New Potatoes

Use a coarse cloth for rubbing off the skin of the potatoes. While washing, cut a small piece from the ends of each potato to help to their boiling. Drop them in boiling water without salt and boil till done. They may be served whole and plain to eat with butter, or a cream dressing may be made by pouring new milk on the cooked potatoes, and thickening the milk with a tablespoon or two of flour the flour used according to the quantity of the milk, a tablespoon to a pint of milk. To the milk add salt to your taste.

Boiled Potatoes

After you have peeled and rinsed in cold water potatoes of moderate size put them in a kettle of boiling water. Have enough water to cover the potatoes and put them in about threequarters of an hour before they are to be served. Cover the pot close and cook half an hour. Ten minutes before the half hour is up add salt in the proportion of a teaspoonful to every four potatoes. After they have boiled half an hour pour off the water and set them on the back part of the stove. If you keep the metal cover on the pot, slip it a little to one side to allow the steam to escape and save the potatoes from becoming soggy. A cloth spread over the pot while the potatoes are steaming is better than the metal cover. Serve in a hot dish.

Creamed Potatoes

Follow the directions given above to the instant of setting the pot on the back of the stove. Instead, after pouring off the water, add enough sweet cream to half bury the potatoes and set over the fire till the cream is brought to boil. Then take from the fire, let stand on the back of the stove for five minutes so that the potatoes will melt into, or absorb, the cream, and serve in a hot vegetable dish. Sprigs of green parsley may be laid on the potatoes, or they may be dusted with black pepper.

Fried Potatoes

Slice across and not too thin cold boiled potatoes. Spread out, and salt and pepper them. Put in a fryingpan with hot lard enough to heat and brown them. Cover, because they brown better when covered. Set over a moderately hot fire. Turn the potatoes every now and then, or rather, stir them over with a large broadbladed knife. Brown slowly, carefully, and a light brown. When done, put them in some place for a short time for the grease to dry off. Serve hot.

Raw potatoes are cooked in the same way, but are cut differently. Cut them lengthwise in thin pieces. Before frying, soak them in cold water half an hour.

Cold sweet potatoes are very nice fried in this same way, but they require more grease and do not dry off as much. Serve very hot.

Puffed Potatoes

Boil and mash through a sieve six large mealy potatoes. Add one tablespoon of butter, one teaspoon of salt, one small white onion minced fine, one teaspoon of minced parsley, and one teacup of sweet cream or milk. Stir briskly, adding two raw eggs separately. Roll a tablespoon of this in flour and fry in a deep pan of boiling lard to make the puffs. Do not put in too many puffs at a time or they will stick together. The puffs must float in the lard and brown evenly. When crisp, remove to a dish and dust with a little fine salt

Ribbons Of Potatoes

Peel the skin from the potatoes, and then peel round and round, making a thin spiral ribbon of the potato. Let the ribbons lie in cold water an hour, drain, put in a frying basket and plunge into hot fat. Drain the fat from the ribbons by laying them a minute on blotting paper, sprinkle with salt and serve hot.

Scalloped Potatoes

Slice raw potatoes in thin slices. Lay them in cold water for one hour. Put them in a pudding dish in layers, seasoning each layer highly with salt, pepper, and lumps of butter. Fill the dish in this way, and cover with cold milk. Set in a hot oven. Put a pan of warm water in the upper oven above it. Cook until the potatoes are very tender. Give them time to cool a little before putting on the table. Use plenty of butter for this dish to make it successful.

Stewed Potatoes

Chop fine, potatoes that have been cooked the day before. Put them into a saucepan. Pour over enough milk to almost cover, salt to make a good flavor, and add a large piece of butter (probably an iron spoonful), according to the quantity you may have. Set the saucepan into another containing water, being careful to have but little water. Boil hard one hour until creamy. Stir occasionally.

Stuffed Potatoes

Choose rather large sized potatoes and all about of the same size. Wash clean and bake till mealy in a moderate oven. Split each potato in two, scoop out the inside and with it mix salt, butter, milk, and a little pepper all to your taste. Stir in the beaten white of an egg to each three potatoes, tuck back the seasoned potato in the skins, press the halves of the skins close together, and brown in the oven. Serve the potatoes in a vegetable dish and lying on a napkin. [See illustration, Plate XVIII]