The I Hate to Cook Book (18 page)

Never believe the people who tell you that pricking potatoes with a fork keeps them fresh and flaky if you’re going to let the potatoes sit around for a while after they’ve baked. These people are dreamers, for the potatoes will be only
slightly
less soggy if pricked than if unpricked. Actually, the only thing to do is to eat the potatoes as soon as they come out of the oven, or else let them go merrily on baking—in which case the skins will be crisper and harder, but many people prefer them that way. However, all this is a minor matter; and if a somewhat soggy potato is the worst thing that ever happens to you, you are Lady Luck’s own tot. The butter and salt and pepper will make them taste good anyway.

How to Dress Them Up If You Care to
Gash and squeeze each baked spud and put in it a chunk of anchovy butter (butter creamed with anchovy paste) or Roquefort butter (butter creamed with Roquefort cheese), or else pass a bowl of sour cream (beaten a bit to mayonnaise consistency) or sour cream combined with onion soup mix, or chopped parsley, chopped chives, chopped green onion tops, or crisp crumbled bacon.

Now, it’s true that sometimes—say, once a decade—it seems imperative to serve a starch that isn’t a baked potato. When you are faced with this, you may find the next few items handy.

     SPUDS O’GROTTEN     

(A fine old Irish recipe originated by Mother O’Grotten, who recently emigrated from County Cork.)

Cook and mash your potatoes as usual (they’re best if you mash them with hot milk). Then pile them into a greased casserole dish and sprinkle grated sharp cheese on top. Don’t be mingy with the cheese. Put on plenty. Bake them, uncovered, at 350˚ for fifteen minutes.

     FLUFFY ONION SPUDS     

6–8 servings

(Handy if you are roasting meat in a 300˚ oven and for some odd reason are not roasting your potatoes around it.)

Cook and mash five good-sized potatoes, using cream, salt, and pepper. Now chop and sauté a middle-sized onion until it’s tender, in five tablespoons of butter. Add it to the potatoes. Put all this in a pretty, greased, oven-proof dish and set it, uncovered, in that 300˚ oven where the roast is, for forty-five minutes.

     MUSHROOM SPUDS     

5–6 servings

You find your grater with the big holes in it and you grate four middle-sized pared potatoes. Then you mix a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup (or celery soup, in which case you call the whole thing Celery Spuds) with half a can of milk, heat it, pour it over the potatoes, and bake, uncovered, at 350˚ for an hour and fifteen minutes.

     FANCY BAKED FRIES     

4 servings

Scrub three baking potatoes but don’t peel them. Cut them so they vaguely resemble French fries, and spread them out on a baking sheet. Now heat a half-stick of butter with two teaspoons of anchovy paste and a dash of salt and pepper until the butter melts. Brush the potato strips with this and bake them in a 350˚ oven for thirty-five minutes.

     FAST FRIES     

3–4 servings

Take a can of small white potatoes and drain, rinse, and slice them. (Or to speed things along, if you happen to have them, take a bag of frozen sliced potatoes from the freezer.) Melt a little butter in a heavy skillet, then add the potato slices, onion salt (or half a teaspoon of onion juice), and pepper. Cook them over medium heat till they’re brown, then pretty them up with chopped parsley.

     CRISSCROSS POTATOES