A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House

in hotel cooking. As the potatoes get older it is better to put them to boil into cold water, and directly they are too old to scrape freely, no mint is necessary or advisable. Some potatoes are best strained before they are quite cooked and then shut down in the saucepan to finish in their steam. If the potatoes are not to be used at once (say when a meal is delayed longer than expected for some reason), it is a good idea either to rice them in a ricer or to mash them. In that way they will not have an unpleasant taste and can be kept hot for some time and still be quite palatable. Often one has some cold potatoes left say from lunch, cut them into slices, put about ½ an oz. of butter into a frying pan and when melted and hot lay each slice of potato flat in the hot butter, fry quickly over a brisk fire till they attain a golden-brown colour. Care must be taken that they do not burn. Cold potatoes can also be used for hot cakes as follows: Take the remains of any boiled potatoes, break them into a bowl, take a breakfast cup and a half of flour (for this quantity of flour about the value of eight potatoes would be necessary) rub them smoothly into the flour, add two ounces of butter, salt, a little baking-powder (unless self-raising flour is used) mix as for pastry with a little milk (sour will do) and if possible an egg beaten into it, form into small cakes and bake on larded paper in a quick oven, serve hot with sugar and butter to be spread on them. For fried potatoes care should be taken to follow these directions carefully: Peel your potatoes and cut them into slices about one-half an inch thick, then into strips, each slice let us say into four, let them lay in a bowl of cold water till wanted for frying. Take a large deep frying pan in which you have melted one-fourth pound of best