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Toast, for Soup
Cut a slice of thin bread, toast it lightly on both sides, and cut it into dice not larger than a quarter of an inch square. Throw these into a frying-pan with hot fat, and turn them about till they are quite crisp. Lift them out with an egg-slice, and put them on an inverted sieve before the fire for a minute or two to drain them from the fat. Serve them on a separate dish. Time to fry the dice, about a minute.
This is a croûton, made the older way: bread dried first by toasting, then crisped in fat. A few notes on quantities, fat and draining.
- The toasting step is the pointLightly toasting before frying drives off surface moisture, so the dice colour in seconds and absorb less fat. Skip it and the cubes take noticeably longer in the pan and come out greasier.
- Quarter-inch dice, and mean itLarger cubes stay soft in the middle and go leathery in hot soup. Cut the crusts square first, then slab, batons, dice; a slightly stale loaf cuts far cleaner than fresh.
- Fat and temperatureClarified butter, beef dripping or a neutral oil, hot enough that a cube sizzles briskly on contact; the recipe says only "hot fat" and gives no depth. Plain butter is liable to brown before the bread crisps.
- About a minute is accuratePre-toasted dice colour very fast. Keep them moving and lift them a shade paler than you want, since they carry on darkening as they drain.
- An egg-slice is a slotted turnerA slotted spoon or spider does the same job. The inverted sieve set before the fire is a draining rack kept warm; a wire rack over a tray in a low oven, or a plate lined with paper, works as well.
- QuantityThe recipe calls for one thin slice, which gives a modest handful of dice. Fry in batches so the pan is not crowded.
- Serve separately, as directedThe instruction to send them to table on their own dish is practical: croûtons stirred into the tureen soften within a minute or two. Hand them round and let each diner add their own.
- KeepingThey hold a few hours at room temperature and can be refreshed briefly in a low oven. Stored sealed with residual fat on them, they lose their fresh taste fairly quickly.
Croûtons in one form or another are as old as the practice of thickening or garnishing broth with bread, and by the late nineteenth century the fried dice were standard issue with purées and clear soups in English kitchens. The French name simply means a little crust. The detail that dates the entry is the equipment: an egg-slice, an inverted sieve, and the open fire — the recipe says only "before the fire" — used as a warming rack for drying and draining.