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Croquettes of Fowl
Take the remains of a cold fowl, and mince it very finely; put it in a saucepan with a little gravy, a little salt, pepper, and pounded mace, and a table-spoonful of cream. Let the whole boil, stirring it well all the time, and, if necessary, thicken it with a little flour, or a few bread-crumbs. When cold and firm, roll it into balls about the size of a walnut, dip them in egg and bread-crumbs; do this once or twice, and fry them in plenty of hot dripping until they are lightly browned; pile them on a napkin and garnish with crisped parsley (see CRISPED PARSLEY). Time to fry, ten minutes. Probable cost, 4d., exclusive of the cold meat. Allow two or three for each person.
A Victorian way of using up the last of a roast bird. The method is sound; only the frying time needs revisiting.
- Chill it properlyThe whole thing hinges on the mixture setting cold and firm before shaping. Spread it in a shallow dish and refrigerate several hours or overnight; a warm or slack mixture will burst its coating in the fat.
- "A little gravy"This means leftover meat gravy or a well-reduced stock, not a modern packet gravy. Use only enough to bind — roughly 3-4 tablespoons to two cups of minced meat. The mixture should be stiff, not pourable.
- Pounded maceBlade mace crushed in a mortar; ground mace from a jar is the direct substitute, about a quarter teaspoon. It is the outer coat of nutmeg and tastes lighter and more floral, so nutmeg at half the quantity will do at a pinch.
- Frying timeTen minutes will give you dry, leathery croquettes. Everything inside is already cooked, so you are only setting the crust: two to three minutes at 350-375F, turning, until deep gold.
- DrippingBeef or poultry dripping was a common Victorian frying fat and gives good flavour. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works; use enough for the croquettes to float freely rather than shallow-frying.
- "Once or twice"The second coat of egg and crumbs is worth doing. A double crust helps keep a soft, creamy interior from leaking.
- Size and yieldA walnut is about 1 inch across, roughly 25g of mixture. How many you get depends entirely on how much meat is left on the bird; at the stated two or three each, allow accordingly. This is a savoury course rather than a main.
- ServingThe napkin catches the fat and would now be a folded cloth or paper on a warm dish. The book gives its own method for crisped parsley; the usual approach is parsley briefly crisped in hot fat and drained.
Croquettes belong to the great Victorian economy of the second-day table: a household that roasted a fowl on Sunday was expected to account for every scrap of it, and cookery dictionaries like Cassell's devote whole columns to the remains of cold meat. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the technique — bind cooked meat with a thick sauce, chill, crumb, fry — came into English kitchens through French professional cooking in the earlier nineteenth century and was thoroughly domesticated by the time this book appeared. The costing of 4d. "exclusive of the cold meat" is the point of the entry: the dish is nearly free, since the expensive part has already been paid for once. Mace, now an occasional spice, was then a standard seasoning for poultry and forcemeats and turns up constantly in this kind of recipe.