Potato Pie

Cafe Society
1

I wasn’t really sure where this one should go. MPSIMS seemed to make a little sense. Anyways, I have a question to go with it. So Cafe it is.

As I’ve said before, I love variations on a theme, always did. And I discovered this recipe about thirty years ago in the Mardigian Library at U of Michigan/Dearborn when I was going there. Anyways, I couldn’t find the original, not surprisingly (although I did Xerox it there, and have some Xeroxed material from that time, believe it or not). But the internet, not surprisingly, was able to oblige.

I always wanted to try this recipe. When I first saw it, my mother was still alive. And we certainly had all the ingredients in the house for it. Eggs would be my main concern now. I rarely cook now. So keeping eggs in the house would seem pointless, since they would just go bad, and who wants that?

I was wondering though, if there is someone I could hire just to make this one dish. I know there are companies like Hello, Fresh that do bring meals to your house, probably for a high fee, I would imagine. But is there anyone, who I could request just one dish of? Or maybe even more in the future? But always just in increments of one, if you know what I mean?

Anyways, I have to share the recipe with you all. Have any of you heard of this recipe? Have any of you heard of anyone trying it recently (so to speak)? Have any of you tried it yourself? Please tell :slight_smile: .

Here is the recipe:

POTATO PIE
[from the Browne Manuscript “written between 1770 and 1772”, in Britain.]

8 Tablespoons butter at room temperature (1 stick, 113g)
1 1/8 cups sugar (226g)
2 lemon, juice and zest
2.5 cups of chopped potatoes (¾ lb, 678g)
A batch of your favorite homemade or store-bought puff pastry or pie crust.

Preheat oven to 425°F/218°C

Make or buy pastry.

Grease a pie or tart dish with butter or baking spray.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Arrange pastry in baking dish.

To blind bake the crust, cover the pastry with foil and fill the dish with baking beans or another weight.

Bake at 425°F/218°C for 12 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F/180°C for 10 minutes. The crust should be golden and set, but not as brown as when a pie is completely finished baking. Keep the oven at this temperature for baking the pie.

While the crust is in the oven and cooling after blind baking, prepare the filling.

Peel the potatoes. Chop them into small cubes. Boil them until they are cooked and tender (about 15 minutes). Drain off the cooking water using a colander. Juice and zest the lemons. Put the cooked potatoes, sugar, and butter in a sturdy bowl. Mash the potatoes and integrate the butter and sugar into the mix. Make sure there are no lumps of butter or potato. Stir in the lemon juice and zest.

Pour this mixture into the prepared pie crust.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is brown and the filling sets. Cool before serving.

And feel free to try it yourself. Sounds delicious, or at least interesting. And then tell your experiences here, if you do :slight_smile: .

2

No doubt this dish was ubiquitous in Britain during WWs I and II. Minus the sugar, butter, and lemon, of course.

For a time back in the '90s, the McDonald’s in Moscow sold deep-fried potato pies. Very Russian.

3

With potatoes alone, possibly (if you could find enough seasoning/flavouring), but famously in WW2 “Woolton pie” (named for the Minister of Food, whose nutritionists dreamt it up) was ubiquitous.

I must say, the idea of adding that much sugar with butter and lemon to potatoes seems a bit odd, to me.

4

Might I suggest sending the Browne Manuscript version of this recipe (which I found on Google presumably from the same site you got this version from) over to Tasting History? It seems like exactly the kind of thing he’d make on the channel.

5

However, he’s pretty clear that he starts with the history lesson idea first, and then finds the recipe. So you’d probably want to also mention some ideas for topics. The most obvious is the idea of war rations, but there are tons of recipes where that would work.

I also remember that emmamadeinjapan did some “desperation pies,” and in looking for her channel name, I found there are a lot of channels that do this sort of thing.

6

One of my favorites is “Life of Boris”, a channel hosted by a Russian expat living in Estonia, which focuses (among other things) on Soviet-era poverty recipes and other Slavic comfort foods. His video on kholodets (shredded boiled pork in aspic) makes me want to try cooking it just so I can say I did, then taste it once, throw it out, and never speak of it again.

7

Potatoes Greek-style make a good side dish for almost anything, and they’re easy to make.

Peel the taters and cut them up into chunks. Steam until tender and let cool.

Transfer to a large baking dish and coat with extra-virgin olive oil. Toss with some lemon juice, dried oregano, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Bake at 350 F until the spuds start turning brown.

Serve and enjoy!

Kholodets, BTW, is known as “head cheese” where I grew up.

8

Hello, fellow U of M Dearborn alumni!

9

I neglected to mention you can toss in some garlic and red onion, too.