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Potato Boulettes
Mix half a pound of mashed potatoes with one ounce of butter and the strained yolks of two eggs, and season with salt and pepper. Whisk the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and add them to the potatoes, mixing quickly and thoroughly. Have ready a saucepan of boiling fat, with the frying basket in it. Drop the potatoes, a tea-spoonful at a time, into it; they will swell to double their size. Fry them a light golden colour, drain them very carefully, and serve.
A simple fritter that depends almost entirely on the beaten whites and the temperature of the fat. Half a pound of mashed potato is about a cup and a half, or two medium potatoes.
- Fold, do not stirThe whites are the only leavening here; the boulettes puff because the air in them expands in the fat. Fold them in with a spatula in a few strokes and fry at once, since a batter left standing collapses.
- Dry mashUse potatoes baked or boiled in their skins and mashed with no milk or cream. Wet mash will not hold a spoonful shape and spits badly in hot fat.
- Strained yolksThe instruction to strain the yolks means pushing them through a fine sieve to break up any threads of white or membrane so the mixture is smooth. It is worth doing but not essential.
- Fat temperatureAbout 350-360F. Hotter and the outside colours before the inside sets; cooler and they soak fat instead of swelling. Fry in small batches so the temperature holds.
- The frying basketThe recipe puts the basket in the fat first, though soft dropped batter can stick to the mesh; the spoonfuls can instead be lowered straight into the fat with a second spoon and lifted out with a spider or slotted spoon.
- Draining"Very carefully" matters because these are fragile when hot. Set them on a rack rather than pressing them into paper, and serve within a few minutes before they deflate.
- YieldThe mixture makes a large number of teaspoonful-sized boulettes, enough for about four as a side dish.
Boulette is simply the French for a small ball, and the term appears in nineteenth-century English cookery writing for small fried or poached balls of forcemeat or vegetable. The lesson is a general one: stiffly beaten egg white folded into a starchy base and dropped into deep fat will swell as the air in it expands.