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Fowl, Croquettes Of
Mix with every half-pound of cold fowl (free from bone or gristle), two ounces of scraped ham. Make half a pint of gravy, by boiling the bones and rejected pieces. Fry two or three shallots in a little butter, add the gravy, and season with powdered mace, pepper, salt, and half a tea-spoonful of pounded sugar. Rub up a table-spoonful of flour with two ounces of butter; put this and the mince to the gravy, and when thick, stir in the yolks of two well-beaten eggs. Make into balls as soon as cold, and fry a nice brown. Roll them in egg and bread-crumbs before frying. Time, ten minutes to fry.
A Victorian way of using up the last of a roast fowl: a thick, well-seasoned mince bound with egg yolk, chilled hard, then crumbed and fried. The whole thing hinges on the panada being stiff enough to hold when cold.
- The hinge: chill it properlyThe mixture must be spread out on a plate and refrigerated until genuinely firm — two hours, or overnight — before shaping. Warm or soft mixture will burst in the fat no matter how carefully it is crumbed.
- Half a pint of gravyAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ cups. Boil the carcass and trimmings with an onion and a bay leaf and reduce to that amount; a strong stock matters more than the exact volume here.
- "Rub up a tablespoonful of flour with two ounces of butter"This is beurre manié: flour and softened butter worked to a paste and stirred into the hot gravy in pieces. By the usual equal-weights proportion, two ounces of butter to one tablespoon of flour is butter-heavy, and you will likely need more flour than the original gives to reach a mixture stiff enough to shape when cold.
- Scraped ham"Scraped" means shaved or shredded with a knife rather than diced, so it disappears into the mince. Two ounces (55 g) of finely chopped cooked ham or prosciutto does the same job.
- Powdered maceMace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and less sweet than nutmeg itself. Ground mace is still sold; a scant ¼ teaspoon is enough for this quantity. Nutmeg can stand in, used sparingly.
- Frying timeTen minutes is far too long — everything in the mixture is already cooked, and the egg yolk binder will turn grainy. In fat at 350–375°F (175–190°C) the croquettes need 2 to 4 minutes, just until the crumb is deep brown and the centre is hot.
- Egg and crumbsBeaten whole egg, then fine dry crumbs; a second coat gives a noticeably sturdier shell. Rest the coated croquettes in the fridge for 20 minutes before frying so the crust sets.
- YieldHalf a pound of picked fowl plus the ham makes eight to ten croquettes — enough for three or four as a light main course with a sharp salad, or six as a first course.
Croquettes were the respectable Victorian answer to the problem of cold roast meat: a household that served a fowl on Sunday needed something to do with it on Monday that did not look like leftovers. The technique is French in origin — the name comes from croquer, to crunch — and it reached English kitchens in part through professional cooks, whose influence on nineteenth-century cookery writing sat alongside that of domestic writers, which is why the method here is a textbook reduction, thickening and egg-yolk liaison rather than anything improvised. Cassell's gives it as an alphabetical dictionary entry, 'Fowl, Croquettes Of', and the panada-bound croquette was the kind of foundation lesson that rewarded attention: master the proportions and you could turn any cold meat, fish or vegetable into a dish worth putting on the table. The half-teaspoonful of pounded sugar alongside mace, pepper and salt is a period signature, often said to be a faint carry-over from the older English taste for sweetening savoury meat.