On Sunday, I cooked my second Victorian recipe: potatoes a la maitre d’hotel. Here’s the recipe:

POTATOES A la MAITRE d'HOTEL

Wash eight potatoes, and boil them in cold water* with a pinch of salt. When thoroughly done, peel them, cut them in thin round slices**; put them--with three ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, pepper and a nutmeg***, the juice of a lemon****, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley*****--in a saucepan on the fire, and, when very hot, serve.

Fun Victorian fact: potatoes should never be served with fish.

*To “boil in cold water” means to start with cold water and bring it to a boil while the potatoes are in the water, as opposed to bringing the water to a boil, then putting the potatoes in. People used to think it made a difference.

**I slightly overdid mine, so if I tried to slice them thinly, they’d just fall apart.

***Meaning one ground nutmeg, as opposed to a volume of pre-ground nutmeg.

****At first, I forgot to put the lemon juice in, but it was still very good. After I added the lemon juice, it complimented the nutmeg quite nicely. I liked it equally both ways, however.

*****I decided not to use parsley; It seemed pointless.

The potatoes before boiling.

The butter. Nuff said.

The potatoes after boiling. You can see they’re just falling apart.

The potatoes having their little fry-up.

 

The completed dish.

  

Overall, I think this one went reasonably well, but if I were to do it again, I would have not overdone the potatoes, and added the lemon juice right away.

More coming next week! (Unless I’m sick or something.)