Tag: potatoes

Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Escalloped Potatoes

VintageJenny

Welcome to Lesson 25 of When Sue Began to Cook. If you’re new, click the book link to be transported to Lesson 1, where the adventure begins, and we meet Sue, her friend Ruth Ann, and Sue’s mother Bettina, Twenties homemaker extraordinaire. This week Sue makes Escalloped Potatoes under her mother’s guidance.

Scalloped Potatoes, or Escalloped Potatoes, are a U.S. tradition. The Henry Ford Museum posts a recipe from 1898 here. Escalloped potatoes are warm, filling, and cheap. They contain vegetables and dairy, two items on every Twenties cook’s daily list.

And then there are the pimientos. The Twenties cook put pimientos in everything. They provided color and just a bit of extra nutrition. When Sue makes Escalloped Potatoes during her Saturday cooking lesson, she puts pimientos in the recipe. Feel free to leave them out if you like. I probably will.

Let’s see what Sue has to say about making Escalloped Potatoes on this Saturday morning.

Sue’s Diary Entry for Escalloped Potatoes

This has been a cold raw Saturday for May, so Mother said it was just the day for Escalloped Potatoes. “We’ll use up the old ones I have on hand. New potatoes taste better than old ones in the Spring.”

Escalloped Potatoes sound hard, but are really very easy to make. Of course it isn’t easy to slice raw potatoes very thin, but I’m sure this lesson did us a lot of good. The little vegetable knife must be sharp!

Oh, I mustn’t forget to write something else down. We used only a part of the canned pimientos and Mother had us pur the rest in a little bowl and cover them carefully with cold water. She told us that pimientos would keep a long time if you renewed the water every day. Lots of houskeepers don’t know that, and their pimientos get mouldy very soon and have to bre thrown away.

Next week we are going to begin house cleaning if the weather is pleasant. And Ruth Ann is so excited over it that she has begged Mother to let her help every night after school. She says there isn’t anything so much fun as putting drawers in order. I’m afraid I can think of lots of things more pleasant than that, but then, it will help to have Ruth Ann here taking an interest in things. But Mother says we will have our cooking lesson next Saturday just the same. Not even house cleaning shall interfere with that!

Print Recipe

Escalloped Potatoes

from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bettina’s Best Recipes, potatoes, Twenties recipes, vegetarian, When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • 3 cups raw potatoes peeled and sliced very thin
  • 3 tbsp flour
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • ⅓ tsp paprika
  • ¼ tsp celery salt [you may want to reduce salt by ¼ tsp]
  • 2 tbsp pimientos cut very fine with kitchen scissors
  • 2 cups milk
  • 3 tbsp butter melted

Instructions

  • We peeled the potatoes and then sliced them very thin, just as thin as we could.
  • Then Mother had us each mix our potatoes, flour, salt, paprika, celery salt, and pimientos very carefully and empty them into buttered baking dishes.
  • Then we poured the milk and the butter over the top and baked the potatoes in a moderate oven for fifty minutes.
    Note: Moderate oven = 375 degrees F.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Ham with Potatoes

VintageJenny

In Lesson 22, Sue makes Baked Ham with Browned Potatoes for lunch. This is similar to the baked ham recipe that I ate growing up. I thought it was a Depression era recipe from my grandmother, but apparently it predates the Great Depression by quite a bit.

This is the first full meal that Sue and Ruth Ann learn to cook during their Saturday lessons. Each week their adventures appear as a chapter in When Sue Began to Cook, a cookbook in the Bettina’s Best Recipes cookbook collection by Louise Weaver and Helen LeCron. Clicking the link will take you to Lesson 1 so you can follow Sue’s adventures in order.

Every week Sue has something chatty to say in her kitchen diary, and this week is no different. Let’s peek into Sue’s diary and see how the story progresses…

Sue’s Baked Ham Kitchen Diary

“Uncle John and Aunt Lucy will be here for lunch today,” said Mother at breakfast, “so we must plan to have a very good meal. Yes, I believe I’ll have you and Ruth Ann make Baked Ham with Browned Potatoes.” I held my breath. That sounded so hard, and grown-up-i-fied! [Sue is not averse to making up her own words when normal ones won’t do.]

“Besides that, we’ll have canned grean beans, hot biscuits and jam, and some sliced oranges with cake.”

“Whee-ee!” cheered Robin. “That’s a real lunch!”

“You may go to meet Ruth Ann, Sue,” Mother went on, “and buy your own meat at Wilkins’. I’ll tell you exactly what to get. As I want you and Ruth Ann each to learn to make Baked Ham with Browned Potatoes enough for four, we’ll have to use both pans of it for lunch. Ruth Ann won’t mind, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I know she won’t mind, I’m sure. She’ll be so glad to learn to make something real! Somehow it sounds lots more important to be making Baked Ham with Browned Potatoes than any kind of dessert, no matter how good.”

And oh, the Baked Ham was dee-licious! Uncle John is going to have us come out to the farm some Saturday soon and make it again for him, he says.

[Uncle John and Aunt Lucy appear in the other Bettina books. John is a farmer who champions good cooking, no matter who makes it. He was just as appreciative when Bettina cooked, before Sue was born.]

Print Recipe

Baked Ham with Browned Potatoes

from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.
Course: Dinner, Luncheon
Cuisine: American
Keyword: baked dinner, Bettina, ham, potatoes, When Sue Began to Cook
Servings: 4

Equipment

  • 1 frying pan with lid must be oven safe to 425 degrees F

Ingredients

  • 1½ lbs sliced ham, cut 1 inch thick Mother had us buy it ourselves and watch the butcher slice it. [From the recipe, this sounds like ham that was not precooked. See notes section.]
  • 12 whole cloves
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 2 tsp powdered mustard ground mustard, dry
  • ½ cup vinegar
  • 1 cup water
  • 4 potatoes, washed and peeled "good sized", probably medium size Russets
  • ½ tsp salt

Instructions

  • Mother showed Ruth Ann and me exactly how to wipe off the ham with a clean, damp cloth, and cut off the rind. Then we each stuck our twelve cloves into the meat, six cloves on each side. (It seemed a funny thing to do.) Then Mother had us each put our ham in a small deep frying pan.
  • Next, we mixed the brown sugar, powdered mustard, vinegar, and water and poured the mixture right over the ham in the frying pan. Then we covered the pan with a lid.
  • We had already lighted the oven and it was very hot. Mother had us put our pans of meat in and leave them for ten minutes. Then we lowered the fire and let the meat cook that way for forty minutes more.
    Note: See notes for cooking information.
  • Every once in a while Mother had us turn the meat over with a fork and several times she had us take some of the vinegar mixture up in a big kitchen spoon and pour it over the meat. (This is called basting — pouring the juice over the meat, I mean.)
  • While the meat was cooking we washed and peeled our potatoes and Mother had us cut each potato in half lengthwise. When the meat had cooked forty minutes, or fifty minutes altogether, we put the potatoes in the pans, too. We laid them, round side down, all around the ham. We sprinkled the salt over them. Then we covered it all up with the lid again and let them cook for twenty-five minutes more. At the end of that time Mother had us look at them. The potatoes weren't quite brown enough, she said, so she had us take off the lid and cook them that way for ten minutes more.
  • Baked Ham and Browned Potatoes does smell so good while it's cooking, that even Ruth Ann could hardly wait for lunchtime to try it!

Notes

Almost all hams today are precooked. If you purchase precooked ham for this recipe, heat the oven to 375 or 400 degrees F, then put the ham in and reduce the heat to 325. Then, at the lower temperature, finish cooking the ham. To include the potatoes, you might want to put them in at the beginning (since the ham is already cooked.)
If you purchase raw ham for this recipe, following the directions above, you would heat the oven to about 400-425 degrees F, cook the ham for the first ten minutes, and then reduce the heat to 350 to contine the baking.
These are both educated guesses from reading a 100 year old recipe. No specifics other than what appears in the recipe above were stated.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Baked Stuffed Potatoes

VintageJenny

Potatoes. Easy to store, open to amazing variety. This week Sue makes Baked Stuffed Potatoes for her weekly cooking lesson. We would call these twice baked potatoes, and they dress up simple meals beautifully. Planning on hamburger steaks for dinner, because that’s what you have available? These baked stuffed potatoes jazz up the meal and make it special.

This is the 9th installment of When Sue Began to Cook, where we meet Sue and her friend Ruth Ann. They gather on Saturday mornings and learn to cook from Sue’s mother Bettina. If this is your first dip into this series, click the book title to be transported to the first lesson.

Each lesson provides a recipe and a chapter of an ongoing story. Ruth Ann misses her absent, ill mother. Sue and Bettina help Ruth Ann cope with her loneliness. They keep her occupied on Saturday mornings with the cooking lessons. The stories appear in Sue’s notes from each cooking lesson.

Sue’s notes on the Baked Stuffed Potatoes lesson

Of course, it wouldn’t make so many dishes if Ruth Ann and I both worked on one recipe, but Mother has us each do it separately. You see, she has it all arranged so there are enough cooking things for each of us, and that is where the fun comes in. It isn’t any real satisfaction to help somebody else cook, but when you make your own baked potatoes and cocoa cookies all alone they taste lots better.

Mother says dishwashing is an art in itself and a good dishwasher is a real artist. She always has us fill our cooking pans with cold water the very minute we’re through using them, and let them soak. It makes them wash so much easier! Ruth Ann put hot water in the little saucepan the milk was heated in for her stuffed potatoes and when she went to wash it, it wouldn’t wash. Mother said milk dishes ought always to be soaked in cold water. In fact, cold water is best for most things. But of course when we really wash the dishes, we have to have hot water and lots of soap suds.

Just so I won’t forget them, I’ll put down the dishwashing rules. First the glasses and then the silver, and you don’t rinse them at all, just wash them in nice clean hot soap suds and dry them with a nice dry clean dish cloth. But all the china dishes and cooking dishes have to be rinsed with scalding water before they are dried.

If you have lots of hot water and nice soap suds, washing dishes is really fun. Why, Ruth Ann and I laugh so much while we’re doing it that Robin and Ted actually come to the back door and beg us to let them help!

The Baked Stuffed Potatoes recipe

This version of twice baked potatoes is a little different from ones you may know. It uses milk to make the mashed potatoes creamy, and then you top it with cheese. Usually we cut potatoes lengthwise, like the twice baked potato skins appetizer from the 1980s. Twenties recipes often cut the potatoes across the middle, so the two ends look more like cups than like boats. When the directions tell you to cut the potatoes in this recipe, cut them around the middle instead of lengthwise.

Print Recipe

Baked Stuffed Potatoes

from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924

Ingredients

  • 4 large good-looking potatoes all about the same size
  • 2 Tbsp butter
  • 1 tsp salt (this may be a little much)
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • ¾ cup hot milk
  • ⅓ cup grated cheese

Instructions

  • We scrubbed the potatoes clean with the little vegetable brush, and then made a cut right around each of them through the outside skin but not through the potato. Then we put them in a moderate oven and baked them till they were very done. It took nearly an hour because they were big fellows. Mother showed us how to test them to see whether they were done. Not with a fork this time, but with a clean dish towel. She had us take them out of the oven and hold them in the cloth, pressing them to see whether or not they were soft.
  • Note: Moderate oven here is 350 – 375º F.
  • When we found that they felt soft and mealy inside, we took them out and cut each one in two right around its waist, exactly where it had been marked with the knife before.
  • Then we each took all of the mealy potato part out of the skin of our potatoes with a big spoon. We put it in a bowl. (We were very careful not to break the skins while we were doint it, too. And we saved the skins.) When the soft potato was all in the bowl, we mashed it up with a potato masher till there waasn't a single lump in it. (Robin helped Ruth Ann but I did mine every bit alone.)
  • Then when all the lumps were out but the potato was still hot, we added the butter, salt, paprika and hot milk. Then we beat it some more just as hard and fast as we could, to make it light and fluffy.
  • When the potato mixture was fluffly and white, we piled it back in the skins again. Mother said not to mash it down but to pile it up roughly and lightly. When the potato cases were all filled we sprinkled the grated cheese over the tops. (Our cheese happened to be hard and dry so we could grate it easily. Mother says when the cheese is fresh and soft, to cut it up in very fine little pieces instead of grating it.)
  • Then we put all the potatoes in pie pans and set them in a hot oven for fifteen minutes. When we took them out the tops were all a beautiful light brown color. We had them for lunch without any meat because Mother told us the cheese in the potatoes would take the place of meat. My, they tasted good!
  • Note: A hot oven as directed here is 400-425º F.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Cheese Potatoes

VintageJenny

(This is the continuation of a series on When Sue Began to Cook.) Saturday December 30 brought Sue and Ruth Ann to the slow week between holidays. Christmas was over, and New Year stood several days away. Not much to do for a couple twelve year olds, so today’s recipe focuses on comfort food. Sue makes cheese potatoes (or Creamed Cheesed Potatoes)

Sometimes these potatoes are served from the stove, like you’ll find in the recipe below. Most often, though, the finished recipe goes into a casserole dish to be topped with cracker crumbs and then baked in the oven. That version appears in Sue’s notes.

Sue’s notes on cheese potatoes

Holiday week is a queer time for a cooking lesson, I suppose, and a queerer time to be learning to cook potatoes. But Ruth Ann and I were tired of Christmas candy, so we asked Mother today if we couldn’t make something plain and simple. Because, after all, we ought to learn to be plain cooks first.

‘How would you like to try creamed potatoes then?” Mother said. “It will be a good time to teach you to boil potatoes, and also to make good cream sauce. Every woman ought to know how to make good cream sauce. Just thick enough, and without any lumps in it.”

I asked Mother if we couldn’t try some Cheesed Creamed Potatoes because Father is so fond of them, and she said we might. “And Ruth Ann may take hers home and warm them up for dinner. It is time she showed her grandmother just what we’re learning in the cooking lessons.

Another way to finish the potatoes

And after all, I thought Ruth Ann had the best of it. When the potatoes were all done and it was time for her to go, Mother had her put hers in a little brown casserole. Then she showed Ruth Ann how to roll out some crackers with the rolling pin to make cracker crumbs, just about two thirds of a cupful. Then she had Ruth Ann sprinkle the cracker crumbs on top of the potatoes and spread them out nice and even. And then they dotted the top with little chunks of butter.

“Now, Ruth Ann,” Mother said, “when you warm up your potatoes, put them in the oven in this casserole (without the cover), and let the crumbs get a beautiful brown color.”

“A hungry brown?” I said, because that’s what Robin and I always call it.

“Yes, a hungry brown. By that time the potatoes will be good and hot. All ready to eat!”

I didn’t tell Mother so, but Ruth Ann’s potatoes in the casserole really looked much more companified than mine. Still, I can’t complain, because Father ate two helpings of the ones I made, and paid me for them with three kisses and a big hug.

Note: Warm the potatoes at 350º F for 20 – 25 minutes until the potatoes are hot and the crumbs golden brown.

Sue’s recipe for Cheesed Creamed Potatoes

Here’s the recipe that Sue made, without the cracker crumb topping.

Print Recipe

Cheesed Creamed Potatoes

From When Sue Began to Cook, 1924. One of the dishes Father likes best.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked potatoes diced That means to cut in little cubes.
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 4 tbsp flour
  • 2 cups milk
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • ⅓ cup cheese cut in small pieces
  • 1 tbsp pimientos, cut fine Mother says the pimientos aren't necessary. We put them in because we happened to have some.
  • 1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped fine

Instructions

  • Mother had us scrub the potatoes with a little brush till they were very clean. Then she showed us how to run a sharp knife around the equator of each potato, cutting through the skin to keep the potato from bursting when it is cooked. Then she had us each fill a little kettle with water and put it over the fire. As soon as the water was boiling, we added the potatoes. We covered them with a lid, and kept the potatoes dancing in the boiling water until they were done. We knew when they were done because Mother had us try piercing them with a fork every once in a while. When the fork would go right through them very easily we knew they had cooked long enough.
  • We drained off the water and let the potatoes get cool. Then we peeled them with a sharp little vegetable knife and cut them up in tiny half-inch cubes. (Mother says that a good cook always has her kitchen knives sharp). Mother showed us how to make nice neat little cubes all the same size. Then our potatoes were ready.
  • *Note: The vegetable peeler wasn't invented until 1928, and the Jonas peeler, with a swivel blade that follows the contour of the vegetable as you cut, wasn't invented until 1953. In 1924, a short vegetable knife was the only option in peeling a potato.
  • Next we took a clean little saucepan and put the butter in it. We let the butter melt over the fire and then we stirred in the flour and mixed them well. When they were all mixed, we added the milk and cooked it slowly, stirring all the time, until it was creamy. (We let it bubble for a few minutes to cook the flour thoroughly.) Then we stirred in the salt, paprika, cheese, (I forgot to say we had cut the cheese fine first of all), pimientoes and parsley. We cooked this all together for about a minute, still stirring all the time so it wouldn't burn. Then we added the potatoes and mixed them around well in the sauce. We let it cook for about two minutes more, and then Mother said it was ready.
  • Most people make their cheesed potatoes out of leftover boiled or baked potatoes, Mother says, but she didn't have us use any leftovers because she thought this would be a good time to teach us exactly how to boil potatoes.

Notes

This is a good example of when and how to use a white sauce in Twenties cookery.