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Potato Croquettes (Peel boil and mash a quart)
Peel, boil and mash a quart of potatoes, mix with them the yolks of four eggs and two ounces of milk; set on the fire, stir for two minutes, spread in a dish to get cold, or leave over night, if designed for breakfast, in which , in which case, a little milk may be added to moisten their dryness; mix thoroughly, divide into , divide into tablespoon parts, shape them, roll in bread-crumbs, dip into beaten whites of eggs, roll in bread-crumbs again, and fry in hot fat. Take off when done, drain, dish and serve immediately. Shaped flat, they are "croquettes a la duchesse."
A plain French-style croquette that depends almost entirely on getting the potato mixture dry and thoroughly cold. The text as printed carries some obvious typesetting repetition ("in which, in which case", "divide into, divide into") — read straight through it.
- A quart of potatoesThe recipe does not say whether the quart is measured before or after peeling; a quart of cut raw potato is roughly 1 1/2 lb, mashing down to about 3 cups. Floury baking potatoes give a drier mash and hold their shape better than waxy ones.
- Two ounces of milkA fluid measure, so 1/4 cup. It is a very small amount by design; the mixture should be stiff enough to stand in a spoon.
- The hinge: dry the mashThe two minutes of stirring over the fire is not incidental — it drives off steam and sets the yolks so the paste holds together. Keep stirring until the mixture pulls away from the pan in a mass, then spread it thin to cool.
- Cold means coldOvernight in the refrigerator is better than an hour on the counter. A warm or soft mixture will slump in the fat and can burst the crust. The suggestion of adding a little milk the next morning should be taken sparingly, a spoonful at a time.
- Breading orderCrumb, then egg white, then crumb again, as written. The double coat is what keeps the fat out; press the crumbs on firmly and rest the shaped croquettes 20 minutes in the cold before frying.
- Hot fat365–375F. Below that the croquettes drink oil; above it the crumbs brown before the centre is hot. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash, and drain on a rack rather than flat on paper.
- À la duchesseThe flat version named at the end is simply the same paste shaped flat. Duchesse potatoes are more often piped and baked than fried, so the name is being applied loosely here.
The croquette takes its name from the French croquer, to crunch, and by the late nineteenth century it was one of the workhorses of the American middle-class table: a way of turning yesterday's potatoes, fish or chicken into something that looked like restaurant cooking. The instruction to leave the mixture overnight "if designed for breakfast" belongs to the era of the substantial hot morning meal. The à la duchesse tag reflects the period's habit of borrowing French service names for domestic dishes — duchesse potatoes, an egg-yolk-enriched purée, are generally traced to nineteenth-century French professional kitchens, and the same enriched paste underlies both the piped garnish and this fried version.