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- Dec 4, 2011
This recipe is from Home Cookery by Mrs. J. Chadwick, 1853.
POTATOES WITH CREAM.
Boil some new potatoes, cut them in slices, put them into a stewpan with a pint or less of cream, four ounces of fresh butter, a very little nutmeg, salt, and pepper, and, if you like, a slice or two of lemon. Set them to boil, stir them well together, and dish them up with sippets of bread.
The recipe is fairly straightforward. I don't think new potatoes are strictly required, but you don't want them to be strong-flavored. No quantity of potatoes is given, but the sippets of bread are a clue that this may be almost a potato soup, or at least have liquid that needs mopped up, so it's okay if the potatoes are swimming in cream a little. Sippets are pieces of fried or toasted bread, cut in strips or triangles.
The nutmeg would most likely be grated fresh from the nut. Already-powdered substances were too easy for sellers to adulterate and lost flavor sooner. Although modern cream may have thickened and be pasteurized, "whipping cream" or "heavy cream" performs similarly to cream skimmed from raw unhomogenized whole milk. Since the author specifies fresh butter, modern sweet cream butter sounds as if it would be suitable, though even fresh butter could be made from somewhat sour milk or cream in the period.
Very few period potato varieties remain, and they're not generally commercially grown. Visually, period potatoes usually had deeper eyes, but that doesn't matter after they're boiled and sliced. Flavor and texture are so subjective, but the common period varieties weren't described as dramatically different from modern potato varieties. Here's Fearing Burr as usual: https://books.google.com/books?id=kyn5PZTFrzYC&pg=PA61
POTATOES WITH CREAM.
Boil some new potatoes, cut them in slices, put them into a stewpan with a pint or less of cream, four ounces of fresh butter, a very little nutmeg, salt, and pepper, and, if you like, a slice or two of lemon. Set them to boil, stir them well together, and dish them up with sippets of bread.
The recipe is fairly straightforward. I don't think new potatoes are strictly required, but you don't want them to be strong-flavored. No quantity of potatoes is given, but the sippets of bread are a clue that this may be almost a potato soup, or at least have liquid that needs mopped up, so it's okay if the potatoes are swimming in cream a little. Sippets are pieces of fried or toasted bread, cut in strips or triangles.
The nutmeg would most likely be grated fresh from the nut. Already-powdered substances were too easy for sellers to adulterate and lost flavor sooner. Although modern cream may have thickened and be pasteurized, "whipping cream" or "heavy cream" performs similarly to cream skimmed from raw unhomogenized whole milk. Since the author specifies fresh butter, modern sweet cream butter sounds as if it would be suitable, though even fresh butter could be made from somewhat sour milk or cream in the period.
Very few period potato varieties remain, and they're not generally commercially grown. Visually, period potatoes usually had deeper eyes, but that doesn't matter after they're boiled and sliced. Flavor and texture are so subjective, but the common period varieties weren't described as dramatically different from modern potato varieties. Here's Fearing Burr as usual: https://books.google.com/books?id=kyn5PZTFrzYC&pg=PA61
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