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Royal Fritters
Put a pint of new milk into a saucepan over the fire, and as it rises in the pan stir into it half a pint of light wine. Pour it out, and let it stand a few minutes to cool, skim off the curd, and put it into a basin. Beat it well with two table-spoonfuls of sugar, a little grated lemon-rind or any other flavouring, three well-whisked eggs, and as much flour as will make a stiff batter. Fry the fritters in the usual way. Drain them well, and serve on a hot dish. Send cut lemons to table with the fritters.
This is a curd fritter: the milk is deliberately split with wine, and the drained curd — not the liquid — is what becomes the batter. Everything depends on getting a firm curd.
- The hinge: split the milk properlyBring the milk just to the point of rising, then stir in the wine off a rolling boil and leave it undisturbed. Stirring it about after it separates breaks the curd into fine grains that will not drain, and you end up with sweet whey and nothing to fry.
- Imperial measuresTaking these as imperial measures, a pint is 20 fl oz (about 2 1/2 US cups) and the half pint of wine about 10 fl oz (1 1/4 cups). A pint of milk yields surprisingly little curd, so do not expect a large batch.
- "New milk"Fresh whole milk, not skimmed and not long-life. Ultra-pasteurised milk curdles reluctantly and gives a slack, grainy curd; ordinary pasteurised whole milk works well.
- "Light wine"In this period the phrase generally meant a wine of low strength, which could be white or a light red; a dry, low-tannin white suits best here, since the acid is what does the work. Anything sweet or heavily oaked will fight the lemon, and red wine is likely to tinge the curd an unappealing colour.
- "As much flour as will make a stiff batter"Genuinely open, because it depends how wet your curd is. Start with 2-3 tablespoons and add by the spoonful until the mixture holds its shape on the spoon and drops reluctantly.
- "Fry in the usual way"No temperature is given in the original; in modern terms, deep fat at around 350-375F, spoonfuls dropped in and turned once, two to three minutes until deep gold. A batter this soft is easier to handle in deep fat than in shallow.
- DrainingOnto a rack or crumpled paper, then straight to a hot dish. Curd fritters go heavy as they cool, so fry in small batches and serve as you go.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; a dozen or so small fritters, enough for perhaps four as a pudding. The cut lemons are the seasoning the recipe specifies: a squeeze over each fritter at the table, with sugar if you want it, though the original calls only for the lemons.
Frying drained curd in batter is an old and widespread piece of dairy thrift -- the same instinct that produces Italian ricotta fritters and the curd-cheese pancakes of central and eastern Europe. Curdling milk with wine is itself a long-established practice, familiar from possets and wine wheys, rather than a Victorian innovation. "Royal" in a recipe title of this period is more often a signal that a plain dish has been enriched than a claim of provenance, though that is a general impression rather than a documented rule. Whey was not necessarily wasted in a period when it was still drunk or given to the pigs.