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Cheese Aigrettes
Put four ounces of flour in a cool oven to dry, then pass it through a sieve. Put half a pint of cold water and one ounce of butter in a saucepan, and let them boil. Then add the flour, and well stir the mixture over the fire until it will leave the sides of the pan quite clean. Take it off the fire and allow it to cool a little, then add two beaten eggs, one by one. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne, and add three ounces of grated cheese. Spread the mixture on a plate to cool. Have ready a pan of frying fat; when it has almost reached boiling point, take a dessert-spoonful of the mixture, drop it into the fat, and fry it a golden brown. Drain the aigrettes on paper. Serve very hot, with grated cheese sprinkled over. Probable cost, 8d. for one dozen.
A choux paste enriched with cheese and deep-fried — a Victorian savoury served at the close of dinner. The paste behaves like any pâte à choux, and the same rules apply.
- The proportions are slackHalf a pint of water (10 imperial fl oz, about 285 ml) to only 4 oz of flour and 1 oz of butter gives a much wetter panade than a modern choux, which uses roughly equal volumes of liquid and flour. Expect a loose mixture; either reduce the water to about 5 fl oz or add flour until the paste pulls cleanly from the pan, which is the test the recipe itself gives.
- Drying the flourA "cool oven" is a low one, of the order of 250-275F, and the point is to drive off moisture from flour stored in a damp larder. Modern bagged flour needs neither the drying nor the sieving, though sifting still helps it go in without lumps.
- Fat temperatureFrying fat does not boil; "almost boiling point" means the fat is shimmering and a crumb of paste browns in under a minute. Aim for 350-360F. Hotter than that and the outside colours before the inside puffs and dries, leaving a raw core.
- Give them roomAigrettes swell to two or three times their raw size and need to tumble as they cook. Fry six at most in a domestic pan, and let the fat come back to temperature between batches.
- The cheeseUse a hard, dry cheese — Parmesan, or a well-matured Cheddar or Gruyère. Anything young and moist will weep fat into the paste and the aigrettes will collapse.
- EggsTwo eggs for 4 oz of flour is on the low side by modern practice. Beat them in one at a time only once the paste has cooled to warm, or they will scramble.
- Yield and servingA dozen, as the costing implies — enough for four as a savoury or six with drinks. They must go to the table straight from the paper; they deflate and toughen within minutes.
- The price8d. is eightpence in pre-decimal money, twelve pence to the shilling. The book gives a "probable cost" for most of its recipes, for housekeepers working to a weekly budget.
Aigrette is French for the egret, and by extension the spray of feathers worn as a plume — the name is usually taken to refer to the ragged, tufted shape the paste takes as it puffs in hot fat. Cheese aigrettes belong to the savoury, the small hot salted course that came after the sweet at a late-Victorian dinner and before the dessert fruit, a peculiarly British arrangement. The dish is really only choux paste, the same preparation used for profiteroles and gougères, turned to account with cheese and a fryer. Its appeal to a household cook was the cost — under a penny each, made from flour, water, butter and the end of a piece of cheese.