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Potato Croquettes
Combine the potato, Snowdrift, seasonings, and the egg yolk, unbeaten, and stir thoroughly. The mixture should be as moist as mashed potatoes; if not, add a little heated milk. Chill and form into balls allowing a generous tablespoonful to each. Then slightly beat the egg white and add a fourth cupful of milk or water.
Roll the croquettes in fine dry bread crumbs, then in the egg mixture, and in crumbs again, and fry in deep Snowdrift, hot enough to brown a bit of bread in forty counts. Serve with Cream or White Sauce No. 2, or any creamed vegetable, or creamed meat or fish.
The instructions here assume an ingredient list that is not reproduced with the method, so quantities for the potato, fat and seasonings are left to the cook. Everything else is straightforward once you translate the frying test.
- SnowdriftA cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company, promoted as a substitute for both butter and lard; the shortening was hydrogenated in its later formulations. Use any solid vegetable shortening in the potato mixture, and a neutral oil with a high smoke point for frying.
- Missing quantitiesThe original method gives no amounts. As a working proportion, figure about 2 cups of hot mashed potato, 2 tablespoons of shortening, 1 egg separated, and salt and pepper; the text itself tells you the real test, which is that the mixture handles like mashed potatoes.
- "Hot enough to brown a bit of bread in forty counts"A common pre-thermometer gauge for frying cooked mixtures such as croquettes, usually reckoned at somewhere in the region of 375F. Forty counts is generally taken to mean roughly forty seconds at a steady pace, though the count was never a precise measure. A thermometer removes the guesswork.
- Chill, and do not skip itThis is the hinge. Warm potato mixture will slump in the fat and the crumb coat will split, dumping the interior into the oil. Refrigerate the mixture until firm, and chill the breaded croquettes again for 20 minutes before frying.
- The double coatingCrumbs, then egg wash, then crumbs is deliberate: the first layer of crumbs gives the wet potato something to grip. Use fine dry crumbs, not fresh, or the shell will absorb fat.
- Egg white and milkThe white is used for the wash and the yolk goes into the potato, so nothing is wasted. A quarter cup of liquid to one white gives a thin wash that drains rather than clinging in blobs.
- Frying and drainingFry in small batches so the oil holds temperature, about 2 to 3 minutes to a deep brown, and drain on a rack rather than paper so the underside stays crisp.
- Yield and servingA generous tablespoon each gives roughly 16 to 18 croquettes from 2 cups of potato, enough for four as a side. The suggested sauces make them a main course: cream sauce, or creamed chicken, salmon or peas spooned around them.
Potato croquettes belong to the late-nineteenth-century vogue for croquettes of every description, a cooking-school staple in America because they turned leftovers into something that could be sent to table with a sauce. This version appears in a promotional cookbook for Snowdrift, a widely marketed vegetable shortening; such books were published by manufacturers to teach cooks that a cottonseed-oil product could replace butter in the mixture and lard in the kettle, and recipes were written so that the brand name stood in for the generic ingredient at every mention. The cross-reference to "White Sauce No. 2" is typical of the period's numbered-sauce systems, in which a single base was thickened by degrees and cited by number throughout the book.