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Curd Fritters
Press a pint of curd through a sieve, and mix with it the whites of two and the yolks of four well-beaten eggs, a dessert-spoonful of flour, a table-spoonful of sifted sugar, and a pinch of pounded cinnamon. Put some lard into a frying-pan, let it get quite hot, drop the batter into it, a table-spoonful at a time, fry until lightly browned, drain the fritters from the fat, and serve them as hot as possible. Time, ten minutes to fry. Probable cost, 10d.for this quantity. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A plain fresh-cheese fritter of the sort that turned yesterday's curd into a hot pudding. The batter is very loose, so success hinges on curd that has been properly drained and fat that is genuinely hot.
- What "curd" means hereFresh unripened milk curd, either soured naturally or set with rennet, then hung to drain. The nearest modern equivalents are farmer's cheese, dry-curd cottage cheese, or well-drained whole-milk ricotta. Ordinary creamed cottage cheese carries far too much liquid; drain it in a sieve or cloth for an hour first.
- A pint of curdMeasured by volume, not weight: an imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups, weighing somewhere near a pound once well drained. Pressing it through a sieve is not optional, as it breaks the grain and gives a smooth batter that will hold together in the fat.
- The egg ratioFour yolks to only two whites. The recipe gives no reason, but the extra yolks will enrich and bind, and the reduced white means less lift. It is not the same thing as three whole eggs.
- Fat and temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'quite hot'. In modern terms shallow frying of this sort is usually done somewhere around 350-375F: cooler and the fritters absorb lard and slump, hotter and the outside colours before the curd sets. Lard is authentic, but any neutral fat with a comparable smoke point behaves much the same.
- Reading the ten minutesThe original does not say whether ten minutes covers the whole panful or each batch; it is most likely the former, since a tablespoon of batter needs only two or three minutes a side. Fry in batches so the fat temperature does not crash.
- Batter consistencyA dessert-spoonful of flour is about 2 teaspoons, and a tablespoon of sugar; this is barely enough to bind. If the curd is wet, the fritters will spread and break, so add flour by the teaspoon until a spoonful of batter holds its shape as it leaves the spoon.
- ServingServes five or six as written. They deflate and toughen as they cool, so drain on paper and take them to the table at once, with sifted sugar, jam, or stewed fruit.
- The cost noteTenpence in pre-decimal money, meaning ten old pence out of a shilling of twelve. It is a period price marker rather than anything convertible.
Curd fritters belong to the long British tradition of using up the by-products of a dairy: cheesecakes, curd tarts, curd puddings and fritters all appear in household books from the seventeenth century onward, and Yorkshire curd tart is the best-known survivor. A pint of curd, four eggs and a spoonful of flour made a cheap sweet course for a family of six, costing less than a shilling at the tenpence given. Cinnamon is one of the usual Victorian flavourings for dishes made with fresh cheese, and the recipe assumes a bowl of curd left from souring or setting milk that would otherwise be wasted.