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Sweet Potato Croquettes
Boil 6 medium-sized sweet potatoes. Remove the skins, and proceed the same as for potato croquettes.
All sweet potatoes can be treated in the same manner as the Irish potato, with the exception of frying with onion.
The recipe is a cross-reference: it assumes you already have the book's potato croquette method to hand. The one thing worth knowing before you start is that sweet potatoes carry far more moisture and sugar than white potatoes, and both work against a croquette holding its shape.
- Bake rather than boilBoiling waterlogs sweet potatoes, and the resulting purée will slump in the fat. Bake six medium potatoes at 400F until collapsing, about an hour, then scoop the flesh out hot. If you follow the original and boil them, leave the skins on and drain the flesh well in a dry pan over low heat.
- The standard croquette methodA workable croquette method -- Mash the hot flesh smooth, season with salt, pepper and a little butter, and bind with one or two egg yolks per pound. Chill the mixture thoroughly before shaping; a cold, firm paste is what keeps a croquette intact. The book's own potato croquette entry, not reproduced here, may differ in detail.
- BreadingShape into cylinders or cones, roll in fine dry crumbs, then beaten whole egg thinned with a spoonful of water, then crumbs again. The double coat is not optional with sweet potato, which is soft and inclined to burst.
- Frying temperatureFry in deep fat at 375F, three or four at a time, for two to three minutes until deep brown. Sweet potato's sugar browns much faster than white potato, so anything hotter colours the crust before the inside heats through.
- Rest before fryingLet the breaded croquettes sit uncovered in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. The crumb coat dries and adheres, which is the difference between a clean crust and a pan of fat full of purée.
- "Except frying with onion"The line most likely refers to the habit of frying sliced boiled potatoes with onion, though the recipe does not say so. Nutmeg, mace, orange zest or a little sherry suit sweet potatoes better.
- YieldSix medium sweet potatoes give something like a pound and a half of flesh, or twelve to fourteen croquettes, serving six as a side dish.
Croquettes were a way of turning leftover or plain-cooked starch into something that could be sent to table looking like restaurant work. The word comes from the French croquer, to crunch. The technique was well established in American household manuals by the later nineteenth century, and the French-influenced cooking schools of the 1870s and 1880s taught mashed-and-fried preparations as basic drill. Sweet potatoes, long a staple of the American South, were a natural candidate for the same treatment, and compilations of this kind often handled them by pointing back to the white potato recipe rather than printing the method twice. The caveat about onion may reflect period taste, sweet potatoes being classed with the sweeter side dishes.