Potatoes (Pommes de terre).—Potatoes are a staple food in Great Britain, but it is safe to say that nowhere are they so badly treated and wasted. Their goodness depends largely on the cooking, and on the choice of kinds. For boiling, baking, etc., the floury kinds should always be chosen, but for salad, and the various French ways of cooking them, choose a waxy potato. French cooks always choose a special long-shaped and waxy tuber, which they call “Vitelotte.” The failure of our cooks in mastering the art of pommes soufflées, sautées, etc., is frequently due to ignorance of this fact. Well scrub and thoroughly rinse the potatoes first, and then peel them (very thinly) as soon before use as possible, for if left soaking in water for ever so long, as is often their fate, they lose flavour and goodness. If potatoes are peeled too thickly they are apt to break to pieces in the cooking. If you are particular as to your potatoes, never let them be peeled at all before they are cooked, as if peeled before cooking they become watery.
— boiled.—Choose even sized, well cleansed potatoes, and put them on in plenty of fast-boiling salted water (use a tablespoonful of salt to half a gallon of water), just bring the water to the boil again, then let them only simmer steadily till perfectly cooked. (If you must use uneven-sized potatoes, put the larger ones into the boiling water a few minutes before the smaller ones, so as to have them ready together.) Test them with a skewer, and as soon as this pierces them easily they are ready; now strain the water off them at once (if left in the water after this point they are apt to burst), shake the saucepan lightly, and set it at the side of the stove, remove the lid, replace it by a folded clean cloth or napkin, and let them stand for five minutes or so, by which time, if the potatoes are of a good kind, they will be quite dry and floury. Now take them up, peel them quickly, and send to the table at once. If preferred they may be served unpeeled, or “in their jackets” as it is called, which is the Irish, and certainly the best, way of serving them. The reason for giving potatoes plenty of water to cook in is that all starchy things, as they are, need plenty of room to swell in, and if crushed together in a small quantity of water, are very apt to burst. When potatoes are old they must be peeled before cooking, and, moreover, must have the “eyes” and bruises cut out of them. In this case fill the saucepan with cold salted water, trim and peel the potatoes, dropping each as done into the pan; now just bring this all to the boil, and let it all simmer for twenty minutes or more, according to size, then strain off the water and either finish as before, or strain, shake off any moisture left on them, and serve at once as they are. In Ireland potatoes are always cooked in their jackets, and for this purpose are put on in an iron pot, with a good supply of salted water, and boiled till the skins crack; the water is then drained off, and the pot left on the fire with a doubled cloth on it for fifteen minutes or so, and then served. Cooked thus they always have what an Irish cook calls “a bone in 'em,” i.e., they are a trifle firm in the centre, though a mass of flour all round. Potatoes take about twenty-five minutes to boil, if full grown or old.