Pare, cut very small and evenly, and put into a saucepan with a finely minced onion and a stalk of celery chopped into tiny bits. Cover with salted boiling water and cook tender. Drain off the water, supplying its place with milk, heated with a pinch of soda. Bring to a bubble and stir in a large tablespoonful of butter, rubbed to a cream with one of flour. Pepper, salt, mix well—but taking care not to break the potatoes—take from the fire, stir and toss for a moment, then turn all into a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle crumbs on the top and brown in a good oven.
Potatoes á la duchesse
Peel and boil enough potatoes to make a pint when mashed. Mix with them the yolk of an egg, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and the same quantity of cream. Turn this mixture upon a pastry-board and press it flat and smooth. With a sharp knife cut the potato paste into squares of uniform size. Slip a cake-turner under each square and transfer it carefully to a greased baking-pan. Set in a cold place to stiffen, then sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese, and bake in a quick oven to a delicate brown.
Potatoes á la Lyonnaise
Cut cold boiled potatoes into tiny dice of uniform size. Put two great spoonfuls of butter into the frying-pan and fry two sliced onions in this for three minutes. With a skimmer remove the onions and turn the potatoes into the hissing butter. Toss and stir with a fork that the dice may not become brown. When hot, add a teaspoonful of finely chopped parsley and cook a minute longer. Remove the potatoes from the pan with a perforated spoon, that the fat may drip from them. Serve very hot.
Savory potatoes
Heat in a double boiler a quart of milk and put into it three sliced onions. Boil for ten minutes, strain out the onions, return the milk to the fire, and stir into it two teaspoonfuls of butter rubbed into two of flour, and two teaspoonfuls of minced parsley. When the milk is as thick as cream, add to it two cupfuls of sliced cold boiled potatoes. Season with pepper and salt, and as soon as the potatoes are hot, pour all into a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle bread-crumbs over the top and bake until brown.
Potatoes and corn
(A “left-over.”)
Cut the kernels from six ears of boiled corn. Cut eight cold boiled potatoes into small dice of uniform size. Put into a frying-pan a tablespoonful of butter and turn the potatoes and corn into this; salt and pepper. Fry, tossing and stirring constantly, for ten minutes.