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Pea Croquettes
Boil 1 cup dried peas that have been soaked over night, till tender, strain and press through sieve. Fry 1 chopped onion in 1 tablespoon Crisco, add to peas, with 1 tablespoon melted Crisco, 2 tablespoons flour, salt and pepper to taste, 2 beaten eggs, and breadcrumbs to make stiff enough to form into croquettes. Brush over with beaten egg, toss in breadcrumbs, and fry golden brown in hot Crisco. Serve hot with tomato sauce.
A straightforward meatless croquette built on a dried-pea purée. The only real difficulty is getting the mixture stiff enough to hold together in hot fat, and the original leaves that to your judgement.
- The hinge: a dry, cold mixtureCroquettes fall apart when the purée is wet or warm. Cook the pea mash down over low heat until it pulls away from the pan, then spread it on a plate and chill it thoroughly before shaping. Breadcrumbs alone will not rescue a loose mixture.
- Which dried peas"Dried peas" here means split peas, green or yellow, or whole dried field peas. Split peas need no overnight soak and cook to a purée in 40-50 minutes; whole peas benefit from the soak the recipe specifies. One cup dry yields roughly 2 to 2½ cups cooked.
- Strain and press through a sieveThis is a texture instruction, not a draining one. Drain the peas well first, then push them through a sieve or food mill for a smooth purée. A food processor works but gives a pastier result.
- CriscoCrisco was the sponsor of this book, which is why it appears three times in six lines. Any neutral solid or liquid fat works: butter or oil for the onion and the enrichment, and a neutral high-smoke-point oil for frying.
- Frying temperatureThe original says only "hot Crisco" and gives no figure; modern practice for croquettes is deep or shallow fat at around 365-375F. Too cool and the croquettes soak and slump; much hotter and the crumb browns before the interior heats through. Fry in small batches so the temperature holds.
- Egg-and-crumb coatingThe recipe brushes with egg and tosses in crumbs once. A flour-egg-crumb sequence adheres better, and a 20-minute rest in the refrigerator after coating sets the crust.
- Yield and servingAbout 8 to 10 croquettes, enough for three or four as a light main course with the tomato sauce, or six as a side. They reheat acceptably in a 375F oven but never regain their first crispness.
This comes from a Crisco-sponsored cookbook of the 1910s, one of a genre in which a manufacturer commissioned a working cookery writer to produce a genuinely useful volume in which its product happened to be the only fat named. Crisco, a hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, was introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1911 and marketed hard as a modern, economical replacement for lard and butter, and croquettes were an ideal showcase: a dish that requires frying fat, enriching fat and sauteing fat all in a few lines. Dried-pea croquettes belong to a long European tradition of turning cheap pulses into something shaped, crusted and served with sauce, dressed up to occupy the place a meat course otherwise would.