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Sussex Fritters
Take half a pound of cold boiled potatoes, and rub them through a sieve. Mix into them two ounces of finely-minced ham, a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley, the beaten yolk of an egg, and pepper and salt to taste. Make into small balls or cakes, egg and bread-crumb them, and fry to a golden brown. Serve in a dish with layers of rolled bacon. Probable cost, 6d.
A leftovers dish of the kind Cassell's printed by the hundred: cold potato, a little ham, and a coating that turns it into something worth putting on a plate. Two details carry it.
- Dry potato is the hingeUse floury potatoes boiled and left to go quite cold, then pushed through a sieve or ricer. Waxy or still-warm potato holds too much moisture and the cakes will slump and burst their coating in the fat.
- Quantities in metricHalf a pound of potato is about 225 g; two ounces of ham about 55 g. That makes roughly eight small cakes, enough for two or three people as a breakfast or savoury course.
- Sieve, not masherRubbing through a sieve gives the smooth, lump-free paste the recipe assumes. A potato ricer does the same job in a fraction of the time; a food processor turns potato gluey and should be avoided.
- Egg and bread-crumbStandard Victorian shorthand for dipping in beaten egg and then rolling in fine dry white crumbs. The recipe uses only the yolk in the mixture, which conveniently leaves the white over, though the coating was normally whole beaten egg.
- Frying temperatureFry in deep fat at 350-375F, or shallow-fry in a couple of tablespoons of dripping or oil over medium heat, three to four minutes a side. The potato and ham are already cooked, so beyond setting the raw yolk that binds them you are only browning the crust.
- "Rolled bacon"Thin rashers with the rind removed, rolled up and either threaded on a skewer or packed into a small tin, then grilled or baked until crisp. Streaky bacon rolls most easily.
- Probable cost, 6dSixpence in pre-decimal money, a figure Cassell's gave for almost every recipe so a housekeeper could compare dishes. It is a period benchmark rather than anything convertible to a useful modern price.
- SeasoningCold potato absorbs salt greedily and the ham varies enormously in saltiness. Taste the raw mixture before shaping, and be generous with pepper.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the English county recipe title, when a dish of potato, scraps of ham and a coating of crumbs could be pinned to a place on very little evidence; no Sussex connection is documented for this one, and county names attached themselves to frugal cottage-style dishes in Victorian compilations fairly freely. What the recipe reflects is the household economy of the period: where a joint of ham or bacon was bought whole and worked through the week, cold boiled potatoes were apt to accumulate, and cookbooks gave whole chapters to what were called rechauffes. The "probable cost" line at the end suggests a manual aimed at the mistress of a modest household rather than a chef, letting her cost a supper dish before she ordered anything.