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Rice Croquettes
Prepare the rice as for Gateau of Rice (see RICE, GATEAU OF). When it has swelled in the cream and is properly seasoned, let it cool; then roll it into croquettes the shape of a cork. Next strew over them crumbs of bread (by which is meant that you dip them first into beaten egg and next into crumbs of bread). Roll them several times in the crumbs in what form you please, and mind they are made a fine colour. When you have fried them of a good colour, you may glaze them on one side with pounded sugar, by using the salamander. Send up with fried parsley of a nice colour in the centre.
A cross-referenced recipe: the work happens in the rice, and the croquette stage is mostly shaping and frying. Read the Gateau of Rice entry first, because everything here depends on the rice being cooked down thick enough to hold a shape.
- The hinge: the rice must be stiff and coldRice swelled in cream needs to be cooked until it is thick enough that a spoon leaves a clear track, then spread on a tray and chilled thoroughly, ideally several hours. Warm or loose rice will burst its crumb coating in the fat and empty into the pan.
- "Crumbs of bread"The parenthesis is the whole method: egg wash, then crumbs. Use dry fine white crumbs rather than coarse panko for the smooth finish implied, and chill the coated croquettes again for twenty minutes before frying so the crust sets.
- Frying temperatureDeep fat at 350-360F. The croquettes are already cooked through, so the only aim is colour and a set crust: two to three minutes, turned once. If the rice base is sweetened, as the sugar glaze suggests, it will take colour quickly, so avoid going much above 375F.
- SalamanderIn the period this was an iron plate or disc heated red in the fire and held over the surface to caramelise it. A cook's blowtorch does the same job; a domestic broiler at full heat, very close, is the other option, though it warms the croquette through more than is wanted.
- Pounded sugarSugar crushed fine in a mortar, equivalent to modern caster sugar. Granulated will not melt evenly under a torch; icing sugar scorches.
- "The shape of a cork"A small cylinder, perhaps an inch and a half by three-quarters of an inch, though no dimensions are given and the recipe adds that you may roll them "in what form you please".
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs completely before they meet hot fat, and expect vigorous spitting. Ten to fifteen seconds at 350F is enough; it should stay bright green, not brown. On a sugar-glazed croquette the effect is odd to modern taste, and the garnish is easily left off.
- YieldNot stated, and it depends entirely on the Gateau of Rice base, which this entry does not repeat. As a rough guide only, a pint of milk or cream with about 4 oz of rice would give perhaps twelve to sixteen croquettes.
Cassell's belongs to the era when the rice croquette sat squarely between savoury and sweet, and this entry shows the seam: the rice is swelled in cream and glazed with sugar, then sent up with fried parsley in the middle of the dish. The technique is French in descent, the croquette taking its name from croquer, to crunch, and egg-and-crumbed shapes of this kind were common in English cookery of the period, being convenient to prepare in advance, hold cold, and drop into fat as needed. The salamander named here was standard equipment in a working kitchen long before the overhead grill existed, and the word survives in professional kitchens for a top-heat grill. The cross-reference to the Gateau of Rice is characteristic of the dictionary format: Cassell's assumed a cook who would look up the base preparation rather than have it repeated on every page.