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Potato Balls
Steam two pounds of mealy potatoes, and beat them till they are quite smooth and free from lumps. Mix with them two ounces of fresh butter, a tea-spoonful of salt, and two table-spoonfuls of boiling cream or milk. Make them into balls the size of a walnut, brush each one over with beaten egg, and fry in hot butter until they are nicely browned. If liked, a little grated ham, a finely-minced shallot, or a little chopped parsley, may be added to the potatoes, and the mixture may be bound together with the yolk of an egg. Send good brown gravy to table with the potato balls. Time, ten minutes to fry the potatoes. Probable cost, 1d. or 2d. per pound. Sufficient for four or five persons. (See also POTATO CONES.)
A straightforward fried potato croquette, and the whole thing turns on how dry the potato is before you start shaping.
- Mealy potatoesUse a floury variety — russet, Maris Piper, King Edward — not a waxy salad potato, which will make a gluey paste when beaten. Steaming rather than boiling is deliberate: it keeps the flesh dry enough to hold a ball.
- Dry the mashAfter steaming, return the peeled potato to the hot dry pan for a minute or two and let the steam drive off before you beat in the butter. Wet mash will slump in the pan and drink fat.
- Two tablespoons of cream is not a typoThe liquid is scalded and kept to a minimum for the same reason. Resist the instinct to loosen the mixture as you would for mash at table.
- Bind with the yolkThe optional yolk is worth treating as compulsory if you add ham, shallot or parsley, since those additions break up the structure. Chill the shaped balls for 20–30 minutes before frying and they will hold far better.
- Egg wash and fatBeaten egg alone gives a thin, delicate coating that catches easily; keep the butter at a moderate frying heat, or use clarified butter, or half butter and half neutral oil, so the milk solids do not blacken before the balls colour.
- Walnut size, ten minutesA walnut here means roughly a 1 in / 3 cm ball. The stated ten minutes is most likely total pan time for a batch, turning them, since everything inside is already cooked.
- Quantities in modern terms2 lb potatoes is about 900 g; 2 oz butter is 55 g, or half a stick. Yield is four to five as a side dish, as stated.
- The gravy"Good brown gravy" means a proper meat-based sauce sent to table separately, not poured over — pouring softens the crust. Any well-reduced roast gravy or beef stock thickened with a brown roux answers.
Fried potato balls were pure economy: cooked potato, a little butter, and whatever scrap of ham, herb or onion the kitchen had to hand, at a probable cost, as the entry gives it, of a penny or two a pound. The technique is close to the French croquette de pommes de terre, and the cross-reference to Potato Cones points to a similar mixture given a different shape.