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Chicken Croquettes (One chicken boiled and chopped)
One chicken boiled and chopped; two sweetbreads. Take two teaspoons of flour, two and a half of butter. Mix these thoroughly and stir in half a pint of boiled milk-cooking it until it becomes thick. Mix this with the chicken, adding pepper and salt, a teaspoon of grated onions, small quantity of celery seeds, and nutmeg. Form your croquettes, dip them in an egg and cracker crumbs, and fry in hot lard.
A classic croquette built on a thick white sauce binder, with one measurement that will not work as printed. Read the flour note before you start.
- The binder ratio is offThe binder ratio looks off -- two teaspoons of flour will not thicken half a pint of milk to anything approaching croquette consistency. Croquette panadas of the general period tend toward something nearer two tablespoons of flour per cup of milk, and a quantity of that order may be what was intended. Cook the roux and milk until it is stiff enough to mound on a spoon.
- Half a pintOne cup, US measure. If you are working from a British edition of a similar recipe, an imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz.
- Sweetbreads need preparation firstThe recipe assumes you know this: soak them in several changes of cold water, poach gently until firm, cool, then peel off the membrane and any gristle before chopping. Raw sweetbreads chopped into the mixture will not cook through in a croquette.
- Chill before shapingThe single step the original omits. Spread the mixture in a shallow pan, cover, and refrigerate at least two hours until cold and solid. Warm croquette mixture slumps in the pan and bursts its coating.
- Egg and crumbsBeat the egg with a spoonful of water or milk so it coats thinly. "Cracker crumbs" means finely rolled plain soda or water crackers, which give a paler, sandier crust than modern breadcrumbs; panko is not the same texture but works.
- Frying temperatureDeep fat at 365-375F. Croquettes are already cooked through, so you are only browning the crust -- two to three minutes, turning once. Fat below 350F soaks in; above 385F the crumbs darken before the centre warms.
- LardStill available and still the best flavour here. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point substitutes directly.
- YieldOne boiled chicken and two sweetbreads with a cup of thick sauce makes roughly 12 to 16 croquettes -- six servings as a main course, eight or more as an entrée.
Croquettes were a standard American answer to a boiled fowl in what is generally taken to be the later part of the nineteenth century: the bird gave up its broth, and the meat was chopped, bound with a stiff panada of butter, flour and milk, and fried in small shapes. The name is usually traced to the French croquer, to crunch, and the technique arrived through the same channels as the rest of the American repertoire of made dishes -- French professional cookery filtered through cooking schools and hotel kitchens. Sweetbreads here are not padding but a mark of ambition; the thymus or pancreas of a calf was a delicacy that turned a leftover-chicken dish into something fit for company.