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Fish and Meat Fritters
Cold salmon or any nice fish, or slices of cold lamb, veal, mutton, or chicken, may be made into fritters, cutting the slices in long, narrow pieces, just right to take up in the spoon with the batter, and any of these are good to fall back upon for a hasty emergency. Season the slices with salt and pepper before dipping them in the batter.
Any bits of left-over meat may be made into force-meat balls and used as fritters. Several kinds may be mixed together and well-seasoned, adding the yolk of an egg to bind them together.
This is a method rather than a fixed formula: cold cooked fish or meat, cut to spoon size, dipped in a frying batter and dropped into hot fat. The batter itself is assumed from elsewhere in the batter-cake section, so pick a plain one — roughly 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1 egg and about 2/3 cup milk, beaten to the thickness of heavy cream.
- Fat temperature is the hingeDeep fat should be 365-375F. Below that the batter drinks oil and slides off; above it the coating browns before the cold interior has warmed through. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Cut for the spoonThe instruction to cut "long, narrow pieces, just right to take up in the spoon" is practical: strips about 2-3 inches long and half an inch thick coat evenly and cook in two to three minutes. Chunks much thicker will still be cold at the centre.
- Dry the meat firstCold cooked fish and roast meat carry surface moisture and jelly. Blot the pieces dry, then season, then dust lightly with flour before dipping — batter will not cling to a wet surface.
- Force-meat ballsForce-meat here means chopped or pounded cooked meat, seasoned and bound; it is not raw sausage forcemeat. Chop the scraps fine, season assertively, bind with an egg yolk and a spoonful of breadcrumbs, and roll into balls no larger than a walnut.
- Reheat properlyThese are cold cooked leftovers, so the frying has to bring them through, not merely gild them. Aim for the centre to reach 165F; small pieces at the right fat temperature will get there in the time the batter takes to colour.
- Salmon in particularCold poached or canned salmon flakes apart when dipped. Press it into small cakes with a little egg yolk first, chill them firm, and treat them as force-meat balls rather than as slices.
- Draining and servingLift onto a rack over paper rather than straight onto paper, or the underside steams soft. Serve at once with lemon for fish, a sharp sauce or gravy for meat. The recipe gives no quantities, so yield depends entirely on how much cold meat or fish is to hand.