Egg Croquettes
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco 2 tablespoonfuls flour 3/4 cupful milk 6 hard-cooked eggs 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley 1/2 cupful chopped cooked tongue or ham Salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste 1 egg Breadcrumbs Chop eggs and mix them with ham, parsley, and seasonings. Melt Crisco, stir in flour, then add the milk and boil three minutes stirring all the time. Now add egg mixture and if required add more seasoning. Cool mixture then divide it into nine portions and make each into a neat croquette; brush over with the egg beaten with a tablespoonful of water, roll in breadcrumbs and fry in hot Crisco. Drain and garnish with fried parsley. Crisco should be hot enough to brown breadcrumb in forty seconds.
Sufficient for nine croquettes.
A panada-bound croquette that depends entirely on a very stiff white sauce and a thoroughly chilled mixture. Get those two right and the rest is routine frying.
- Chill it properlyThe instruction to "cool mixture" is the hinge of the recipe. Spread it in a shallow pan and refrigerate at least two hours, or until firm enough to cut; warm or barely-cool mixture will slump in the fat and burst the crust.
- CriscoThe book was published as a promotional cookbook for Crisco, so the shortening is named at every turn. Any neutral solid or liquid frying fat works, and butter is fine for the roux.
- Frying temperatureThe book gives no temperature, only the crumb test. "Hot enough to brown breadcrumb in forty seconds" corresponds, by the usual reckoning, to somewhere in the region of 370-385F. Much hotter and the crumb colours before the centre heats through.
- The sauce is meant to be very thickTwo tablespoons each of fat and flour to three-quarters cup of milk gives a stiff binding sauce rather than a pouring one. Boil the full three minutes with constant stirring so the flour cooks out.
- TongueCooked beef tongue was an ordinary larder item when this book was written and now generally takes ordering ahead from a butcher. Ham, or leftover cooked bacon, gives a similar salty note.
- SeasoningHard-cooked eggs and a flour-thickened sauce both swallow salt. Taste the mixture cold, before shaping, since chilling mutes it further.
- CrumbingOne egg beaten with a tablespoon of water is enough for nine croquettes if you work with a light hand. For a sturdier shell, roll in flour before the egg wash, then crumb twice.
- Fried parsleyDry sprigs completely, then drop into the hot fat for a few seconds until they stop sputtering and turn bright. Wet parsley will spit violently.
- YieldNine croquettes, so three or four servings as a lunch or supper dish with a salad.
A Calendar of Dinners belongs to the genre of manufacturer's cookbook: Procter & Gamble introduced Crisco in 1911 as a hydrogenated vegetable shortening and promoted it heavily through recipe collections in which it replaces both butter and lard, hence its appearance here in the roux and the frying kettle alike. The croquette itself is older and thoroughly French in method — chopped meat or egg bound in a stiff béchamel or panada, shaped, crumbed and deep-fried — and it earned its place in American and British household cookery as a way of turning small quantities of cooked leftovers into a presentable hot dish. Egg croquettes belong squarely to that economical tradition, with a little tongue or ham added for savour rather than substance.