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Potato Croquettes
2 pints mashed potatoes, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons Crisco, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste.
Mash potatoes by rubbing them through wire sieve with back of wooden spoon; dissolve Crisco, add it to potatoes with 1 of eggs well beaten and seasonings. Mix and divide into 10 or 12 pieces, form them into neat croquettes, brush over with remaining beaten egg, toss in breadcrumbs, and fry in hot Crisco.
A straightforward croquette from one of the Crisco-promoting household books of the 1910s-20s. The only tricky part is getting the potato dry and stiff enough to hold its shape in the fat.
- Dry the potato firstThis is the hinge. Wet or waxy mashed potato will slump and burst in the fat. Use a floury baking potato, boil or bake it, then dry the mash over low heat for a minute or two before adding anything.
- 2 pints of mashed potatoMeasured by volume, not weight: about 4 cups, which will take somewhere in the region of 2 lb of raw potatoes. The recipe itself gives the yield as 10 to 12 croquettes.
- CriscoAn all-vegetable hydrogenated shortening, heavily advertised in books of this period. Any neutral solid or liquid frying fat works; butter in the mixture gives better flavour, and a neutral oil is fine for the frying.
- "Dissolve Crisco"Means melt it, so it blends into the hot potato rather than sitting in lumps. Add it while the potato is still warm.
- Red pepperCayenne, not paprika and not sweet red pepper. A pinch is enough for this quantity.
- Chill before coatingNot in the original, but worth doing. Half an hour in the refrigerator firms the shaped croquettes and makes the egg-and-crumb coating stick cleanly.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only 'hot Crisco' and gives no figure. In practice deep fat around 375F works: below that the croquettes soak, much above and the crumbs colour before the inside heats through. A few minutes, until deep gold, should do, since everything is already cooked.
- The egg washOne beaten egg brushed over 12 croquettes goes further if you thin it with a teaspoon of water. Crumb them twice for a sturdier shell.
Croquettes came into English-language cookery from the French kitchen in the nineteenth century, the word from croquer, to crunch, and by 1900 they were a standard way of turning leftover mashed potato, fish or minced meat into something presentable. The repeated naming of Crisco marks the book as belonging to the wave of branded cookery publishing that followed the shortening's introduction in 1911, when manufacturers commissioned or subsidised recipe collections in which their product stood in for lard and butter at every turn.