Southern-Style Steamed Potatoes

Wash clean a dozen well-grown new potatoes, steam until a fork will pierce, dry in heat five minutes, then peel, and throw into a skillet, with a heaping tablespoonful of butter, well-rolled in flour, half a pint of rich milk, ten drops onion juice, salt and pepper to taste, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley.

The sauce must be bubbling when the potatoes are put in. Toss them in it for five minutes, put in deep dish and pour the gravy over. Serve very hot.

From "Dishes and Recipes of the Old South", Martha McCulloch Williams, 1913

Potato Cakes

3 fair-sized potatoes
1 egg
2 tablespoonfuls of fine wheatmeal
pepper and salt to taste
pinch of nutmeg

Peel, wash, and grate the raw potatoes; beat up the egg and mix it with the potatoes, flour, and seasoning. Beat all well together, and fry the mixture like pancakes in oil or butter.

Baked Potatoes with Sage and Onion

* 2 large potatoes.
* 6 onions.
* 2 teaspoons sage.
* 1 ounce bread crumbs.
* 2 ounces butter.
* ½ teaspoon each salt and pepper.

Peel the potatoes and cut them lengthways into slices about half an inch thick, place six of these slices in a baking tin or dish which has been well greased with one and a half ounces of the butter. In the meantime peel and boil the onions for a quarter of an hour in a little salted water, and the sage (tied in a piece of muslin) with them for the last five minutes. Chop the onions and sage and mix with the bread crumbs, salt, pepper and half an ounce of butter, and spread the mixture thickly over the slices of potato, and bake for one and a half or two hours.

Apple sauce should be served with this dish and a rich gravy.

How to Boil Potatoes

Select potatoes of uniform size, wash and pare thinly, cover with boiling water and cook half an hour; when nearly done add salt. As soon as done drain from the water and set the saucepan where the potatoes can steam for a few minutes. They should be served immediately, and never allowed to remain in the water a moment after they are cooked.

Potatoes are much better steamed with their skins on than boiled, as they then retain all the potashes. When they are old they should be washed, pared and covered with cold water, and allowed to stand for several hours before either boiling or frying.

Warmed-Over Mashed Potatoes

To two cupfuls of cold mashed potatoes add a half cupful of milk, a pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of flour and two eggs beaten to a froth. Mix the whole until thoroughly light; then put into a pudding or vegetable dish, spread a little butter over the top and bake a golden brown. The quality depends upon very thoroughly beating the eggs before adding them, so that the potato will remain light and porous after baking, similar to sponge cake.

This vintage recipe is from "The White House Cookbook"

Potato Recipes: Hot Potato Salad

Pare six or eight large potatoes, and boil till done, and slice thin while hot; peel and cut up three large onions into small bits and mix with the potatoes; cut up some breakfast bacon into small bits, sufficient to fill a teacup and fry it a light brown; remove the meat, and into the grease stir three tablespoonfuls of vinegar, making a sour gravy, which with the bacon pour over the potato and onion; mix lightly. To be eaten when hot.

This is from "The White House Cookbook"

Stuffed Potatoes II

Bake 4 large potatoes. Cut in half lengthwise and, without breaking skins, scoop out insides and mash; add ½ teaspoon salt, ⅛ teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon chopped parsley, 1 teaspoon melted butter and mix with fork. Return to shells, put a few drops of milk on top; rough with fork; sprinkle with paprika and place in oven until brown.

Potato Recipes: Mashed Potatoes

Take the quantity needed, pare off the skins and lay them in cold water half an hour; then put them into a saucepan with a little salt; cover with water and boil them until done. Drain off the water and mash them fine with a potato masher. Have ready a piece of butter the size of an egg, melted in half a cup of boiling hot milk and a good pinch of salt; mix it well with the mashed potatoes until they are a smooth paste, taking care that they are not too wet. Put them into a vegetable dish, heaping them up and smooth over the top, put a small piece of butter on the top in the centre, and have dots of pepper here and there on the surface as large as a half dime.

Some prefer using a heavy fork or wire beater, instead of a potato masher, beating the potatoes quite light and heaping them up in the dish without smoothing over the top.

From "The White House Cookbook", 1887