Croutons
(Serve with any Soup) No. 1: Cut stale bread in fourth-inch slices, brush with melted Snowdrift, cut in squares, toast in the oven, and sprinkle slightly with salt.
No. 2: Cut stale bread in cubes and fry in plenty of Snowdrift, in a deep kettle, heating it so that a cube of bread will brown in it in forty seconds. When brown, drain the frying basket a moment, dip out the croutons onto crumpled paper, to drain further, and sprinkle them slightly with salt.
Two methods, oven and deep-fried, both keyed to a branded shortening that no longer exists. Everything here still works with butter or a neutral oil.
- SnowdriftA cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company, the promotional vehicle for this book. Substitute melted butter, clarified butter, or olive or vegetable oil at the same volume; for the deep-fried version any neutral oil with a high smoke point does the job.
- The 40-second testThis is the whole recipe in one line. A bread cube that browns in forty seconds puts the fat somewhere around 375-385F, and a thermometer gets you there faster than the test cube. Cooler and the croutons drink oil; hotter and the outsides colour before the centres dry.
- Fourth-inch slicesQuarter inch, about 6 mm. That thickness dries through in the oven without turning to cracker; cut thicker and the centre stays soft.
- Oven temperatureThe original names none. 375F for 8–12 minutes, turning the pan once, gives even colour on quarter-inch squares. Watch the last two minutes, as buttered bread goes from gold to bitter quickly.
- Stale bread mattersNot a thrift instruction but a technical one. Day-old bread has lost enough moisture to crisp rather than steam, and it cuts cleanly into cubes instead of compressing under the knife. Fresh bread can be dried in a low oven for ten minutes first.
- Frying basketA wire basket that sat in the kettle, the domestic version of a commercial fryer. A spider or slotted spoon works; lift and drain over the pot for a few seconds before the croutons hit paper, or the residual oil soaks back in.
- Crumpled paperCrumpling gives the drained oil somewhere to go instead of pooling under the food. A wire rack set over a sheet pan does it better. Salt while still hot so it sticks.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no quantity; a few slices of sandwich bread will garnish several bowls of soup. Cooled completely, they keep about three days in a tin; they will soften in plastic.
Snowdrift was a cottonseed shortening, and books like this one were published by its makers to teach cooks to reach for the can in place of lard or butter — hence a two-line crouton recipe that names the brand twice. Croutons themselves are older and humbler: the word is French, a diminutive of croûte, crust, and the practice of crisping stale bread in fat to float on soup runs through European cookery long before anyone bothered to write it down.