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Chicken Kromeskies
Mince a half-cooked chicken, four ounces of ham, four ounces of tongue, and four ounces of mushrooms. Melt one ounce of butter in a small saucepan, stir in one ounce of flour till quite smooth, cook a minute or two without browning, and dilute with a gill of stock or cream. Add a little finely-chopped parsley, the grated rind of half a lemon, salt and cayenne to taste, and a few drops of lemon-juice. When these are thoroughly mixed stir in the chicken, etc., and stir over the fire till thoroughly blended, then turn on a dish or plate till cold. Have ready some frying batter and thinly-sliced fat bacon. Shape the mixture into rolls about the size of wine corks, roll each in a slice of bacon, dip in the batter, and fry in a quantity of boiling fat; strain for a moment of kitchen paper, pile up on a hot dish, garnish with sprigs of parsley, and serve immediately. Probable cost, 2s. 6d.
A Victorian entrée: a thick, cold croquette mixture wrapped in bacon, battered and deep-fried. The whole thing depends on the filling being stiff enough to shape, so treat the panada stage carefully.
- The hinge: the mixture must set hardOne ounce each of butter and flour to a gill of liquid gives a very thick binding sauce. The recipe only says to turn it out "till cold"; in practice it wants to be thoroughly cold and firm before it will hold a cork shape, so allow it plenty of time. If it is soft when cold, it was too wet; return it to the pan and drive off moisture rather than adding more flour.
- A gillIn this English book, a quarter of an imperial pint — 5 fl oz, or about 150 ml. An American gill is 4 fl oz. Stock gives a savoury, sliceable filling; cream a richer, softer one.
- "Half-cooked chicken"The instruction assumes the mixture will be cooked again in the pan and then deep-fried. Poach or roast the bird through and mince it; the frying is too brief to be relied on for raw or underdone poultry buried in a cold, dense filling.
- TonguePressed ox tongue was a standard cold-larder item in Victorian kitchens and gave colour and a faint cure flavour. Good deli-cut salt beef or more ham will do; the point is a cured, firmly textured meat against the plain chicken.
- The baconWants thin streaky bacon, stretched with the back of a knife so it wraps the roll completely and overlaps. Anything thick-cut will not adhere and will pull the batter off in the fat.
- Frying batterThe recipe assumes a separate batter recipe elsewhere in the book. Any standard coating batter will serve — flour, a pinch of salt, a little oil and enough tepid water to make a coating consistency, optionally lightened with whisked egg white. It should cling thickly, not run off.
- "Boiling fat"Not literally boiling — 350–375°F (175–190°C). Below that the batter absorbs fat and the bacon does not crisp; above it the outside colours before the cold centre has warmed through.
- YieldThe quantities make a substantial number of small rolls; the exact count depends on how large you shape them. They must go to table at once; the batter softens within minutes.
- CostThe two shillings and sixpence is the original's own note of the market price and has no modern equivalent worth calculating — it was a way of costing a dish for a household budget.
Kromeskies — also spelled cromesquis, kromeskis and half a dozen other ways — are generally traced to Polish and Russian cookery, the name usually derived from kromeczka, a little slice, and they reached British and French kitchens through the professional chefs of the nineteenth century. What distinguishes them from an ordinary croquette is the wrapping: rather than being egged and crumbed, the cold forcemeat is bound in a sheet of bacon or calf's caul before it is battered and fried. The recipe demonstrates two techniques at once, the thick binding panada and deep frying in batter, and it turns the remains of a roast fowl, a slice of tongue and the end of a ham into something fit to send up as a hot entr"e.