The "Queen" cookery books: Vegetables

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 5 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. Olive potatoes, or potatoes “ turned ” with a vegetable cutter to any shape required, are boiled exactly in the same way, only needing extra care not to cook them too fast, or to overboil them, in which case they break Pommes Anna. — This is a capital way of using potatoes when too old to boil nicely, though of course the dish is very delicate if made with young ones. Wash, peel, and slice thinly as many potatoes as you require, then arrange them in layers in a well buttered charlotte mould, seasoning each layer as you pack it in, with salt and dissolved butter. Continue these layers till the mould is full and closely packed, then cover with a buttered paper, and bake in a hot oven for one to one and a quarter hours, when you turn it out on to a hot dish, and serve at once. The mould must be put into the oven directly it is packed, for if left standing the potatoes are apt to go black. A particularly dainty entremets glace also goes by this name, which is prepared thus : Rub three or four medium-sized plainly-boiled potatoes through a fine wire sieve, stir into this puree a gill of rich bechamel sauce, in which you have previously dissolved foz. of best leaf gelatine, season it all with fine salt, coralline pepper, and a teaspoonful of finely