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Italian Polpetti
Grate two ounces of Parmesan cheese, and mince finely half a pound of any cooked meat without fat; put these ingredients, together with a slice of ham or tongue, into a stewpan; add a quarter of a pint of Italian sauce and two small tea-spoonfuls of piquant sauce. Stir over the fire until well heated throughout, then take out the polpetti on a marble slab or large flat dish, spread the paste (for such it will be) evenly to about a quarter of an inch thick, and let it get cold, when it is to be cut into small cakes with a tin cutter. These are now to be egged, bread-crumbed, and fried in boiling lard. Time, ten minutes to fry.
A croquette in all but name: cooked meat bound with cheese and sauce, chilled to a firm paste, then cut, crumbed and fried. The hinge is the chilling — if the paste is not cold and stiff, the cakes collapse in the fat.
- Italian sauceSauce italienne, a brown sauce finished with finely chopped mushrooms, shallot and herbs, sometimes with a little tomato. A well-reduced mushroom-and-shallot gravy, or a thick demi-glace, does the same work; it must be thick enough to bind rather than moisten.
- Piquant sauceThis may be the made sauce piquante, a brown sauce sharpened with vinegar, shallots and gherkins, though the tiny quantity called for also fits one of the bottled sharp sauces of the Worcestershire or Harvey's type. Two small tea-spoonfuls is a seasoning, not a flavour base.
- A quarter of a pintFive fluid ounces in imperial measure, a little over half a US cup. If the paste looks slack when heated through, work in dry breadcrumbs until it holds a shape.
- The slice of ham or tongueNo weight is given; an ounce or two is in keeping with the rest. Mince it as finely as the other meat, or it will tear the cakes when you cut them.
- Chilling the pasteThe marble slab was the Victorian cold surface. A parchment-lined tray in the refrigerator for an hour or two gives a firmer set than cooling on the counter, and firmer paste means cleaner rounds from the cutter.
- Frying timeTen minutes is far too long for quarter-inch cakes of already-cooked meat. In fat at 350-375F they need two to three minutes, turning once, and are done when the crumb is deep gold.
- Boiling lardLard does not boil at frying temperature; the bubbling is water leaving the food. Use a thermometer rather than the visual cue, and any neutral frying fat will serve.
- YieldHalf a pound of meat plus cheese and sauce gives about ten to twelve small cakes — a first course or light supper for three or four.
Polpetti is an anglicised spelling of the Italian polpette, from polpa, flesh or the meaty pulp of a thing \ the the same root that gives English "pulp". In Italy the word covers meatballs and small patties of chopped meat, but what appears here is squarely a Victorian British croquette: cooked meat left over from a joint, bound with a made sauce, set firm, stamped into rounds, egged, crumbed and fried. Household dictionaries of the period gave a great deal of space to such dishes, because a large roast was the normal centre of a middle-class dinner and the cook was expected to bring the remains back to table in a form that did not look like remains. The Italian and piquant sauces both assume a kitchen keeping bottled and made sauces on hand, which was the practical foundation of this whole class of recipe.