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Green Corn Croquettes
To one quart of grated young corn add one teacup of flour; pepper and salt, one cup of sweet milk, four tablespoonfuls of butter. Warm the milk and butter, then add the corn; when cold, add three eggs beaten very light, adding the whites last. Make into balls, and fry in very hot lard.
A soft corn fritter batter rather than a bound croquette, so the handling of the mixture matters more than anything else here.
- Cool it before the eggsThe hinge of the recipe. If the corn-and-milk base is still warm when the eggs go in, they set into threads and the mixture will never hold together in the fat. Spread it in a shallow pan and chill it thoroughly, then fold in the beaten whites last as directed.
- Green cornThis means fresh immature sweet corn at the milky stage, not a colour or variety. One quart of grated kernels takes roughly 8 to 10 medium ears. Grating on a coarse box grater against the cob is what releases the starchy milk that binds the batter; cutting the kernels off whole gives a much looser mixture.
- A teacup of flourNineteenth-century teacup measures varied and were not standardised; the term is usually reckoned at somewhere between a half and three-quarters of a modern cup rather than a full measuring cup. With a quart of wet corn this is a slack batter, and "make into balls" is optimistic; expect to drop spoonfuls.
- Sweet milkPlain whole milk. The term simply distinguishes it from the soured or buttermilk that many recipes of the period called for.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature or depth of fat. "Very hot lard" is broadly equivalent to the usual modern frying range of about 365-375F. Cooler than that and they drink fat and collapse; much hotter and the outside browns before the interior sets. Fry in small batches so the temperature holds.
- FatLard suits the dish for flavour, but any fat suitable for deep frying will work. Butter alone will burn at frying heat.
- SeasoningThe original gives no quantities. Start with about a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper for the full quart of corn, and fry one test spoonful to taste before committing the batch.
- YieldAbout 18 to 24 croquettes, enough for six as a side dish. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the bottoms stay crisp, and serve at once.
Grated green corn was a prized seasonal ingredient of the American table, and cookbooks of the period are thick with ways to use it while it was at the milky stage: puddings, oysters, fritters, and croquettes like these. The name "croquette" is French, from croquer, to crunch, and by 1900 American cookbooks had stretched it to cover almost anything shaped by hand and fried, whether or not it contained the thick panada that a French cook would have insisted on. This one is really a fritter under a fashionable name — a reminder of how strongly late-Victorian household cookery leaned on French vocabulary for domestic dishes. The instruction to beat the eggs light and add the whites last is the same leavening trick that carried spoon breads and corn puddings of the same era.