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Rice Croquettes
One-half cup rice, one pint milk, two tablespoons sugar, three eggs, one tablespoon melted butter, a little grated lemon peel and salt; soak the rice in enough warm water to cover it, then drain almost dry, put in the milk and steam until very tender, then add sugar, butter and salt; beat the eggs to a stiff froth and add to the mixture. Cook all together about five minutes over a slow fire, remove from the fire and add the grated lemon peel and turn it upon a well buttered dish; when cold, flour your hands and roll into oval shaped balls, dip into beaten eggs and cracker crumbs and fry in good sweet lard. Some prefer fine bread crumbs to the crackers.
A rice custard stiff enough to shape, breaded and deep-fried. The whole thing hangs on getting the paste dry and cold before you try to roll it.
- The hinge: cook it dry, chill it hardAfter the eggs go in, the five minutes over a slow fire must actually thicken the mass until a spoon drawn through leaves a track. Spread it no more than an inch deep on the buttered dish and refrigerate at least four hours, or overnight; a warm or wet paste will burst in the fat.
- Rice and milkOne pint is 2 cups. Use a short- or medium-grain white rice, which breaks down and binds; long-grain tends to stay separate, so the paste holds together less well. The presoak in warm water shortens the milk cooking, which will still take something like 30-40 minutes over low heat with frequent stirring.
- Steam until very tenderThis means well past al dente, to the point where the grains are collapsing into a thick porridge. Do it in a heavy pan over the lowest heat, or in a double boiler, since milk and rice scorch readily.
- "Beat the eggs to a stiff froth"Whole eggs, beaten light and foamy, not separated. Temper them: stir a ladle of the hot rice into the eggs first, then return everything to the pan, or you will get threads of scrambled egg through the paste.
- Frying fat and temperature"Good sweet lard" means fresh, clean lard with no rancidity or bacon flavour. Any neutral fat with a high smoke point works; around 365F is the usual deep-frying temperature. Fry a few at a time so the temperature does not crash.
- Cracker crumbsPeriod cracker crumbs would have been plain soda or water crackers, crushed fine. Saltines or unseasoned dry breadcrumbs both do the job; the crackers give a slightly coarser, crisper shell.
- Yield and servingAbout a dozen croquettes the size of a small egg, enough for four to six at supper. Serve warm, dusted with sugar or cinnamon sugar, with a fruit sauce or preserves alongside.
Croquettes were one of the great enthusiasms of late nineteenth-century American cookery, a domesticated borrowing from French kitchen practice: any bound paste, savoury or sweet, could be shaped, crumbed and dropped in deep fat. Sweet rice versions appear across the household manuals of the period, and they belong to the same thrifty logic as bread pudding, turning cheap rice and milk into something that looks like a made dish. In the older meal pattern, supper was the light evening meal after a heavy midday dinner, and a sweet fried croquette with preserves was a perfectly respectable centrepiece. The lemon peel is grated in off the heat.