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Chestnut Croquettes
1 cup mashed French chestnuts 2 tablespoons thick cream Yolks 2 eggs 1 teaspoon sugar 1/4 teaspoon vanilla Mix ingredients in order given. Shape in balls, dip in crumbs, egg, and crumbs again, fry in deep fat, and drain.
A small sweet croquette from the entree chapter, built on a stiff chestnut paste bound with egg yolk. Everything depends on the paste being dry and cold enough to hold its shape in hot fat.
- Chill before shapingThe mixture as written is soft, and warm paste bursts its crust in the fryer. Spread it on a plate and refrigerate at least an hour, then shape and refrigerate the shaped balls again before breading.
- "French chestnuts"These are the large single-kernel marrons sold in autumn, not the small multi-lobed American chestnut, which is effectively gone from commerce. Vacuum-packed or jarred cooked chestnuts work; drain and dry them well, since packing liquid makes the paste too loose.
- Getting to one cup mashedRoughly a pound of chestnuts in the shell should give you about a cup mashed, once shell and pellicle are allowed for. Score, boil or roast, and peel while hot -- the inner pellicle is far harder to remove once the nuts cool. Simmer the peeled nuts until tender, then press through a ricer or sieve rather than a food processor, which turns them gluey.
- The dipping egg is extraThe two yolks go into the paste. The egg for the crumb-egg-crumb coating is an additional whole egg, beaten with a spoonful of water; the original assumes a cook who knows this.
- CrumbsFine dry white breadcrumbs, not panko and not fresh crumbs. Press the first coating on firmly so no paste shows, or fat will find the gap.
- Deep fat375F. At a lower temperature the croquettes absorb fat and slump; hotter and the crumbs darken before the centre warms. They need only about a minute and a half, to a deep gold. Fry three or four at a time.
- Yield and servingMakes roughly eight to ten walnut-sized croquettes, enough for four as a small course. They are faintly sweet; a dusting of sugar or a spoonful of thick cream suits them equally.
Croquettes were a staple of the entree chapters of turn-of-the-century American cookbooks, where a course between fish and roast was typically small, hot and shaped by hand. Chestnuts came to that role by way of French cookery, in which the marron is treated more as a starch and a confection than as a nut -- pureed for garnish with game, candied as marrons glaces, or sweetened and bound for frying, as here. The single teaspoon of sugar and the quarter-teaspoon of vanilla place this version on the sweet side of the line, close to a dessert but still served as a savory-course accompaniment, an ambiguity not uncommon in the period. Chestnuts were a late-autumn arrival in the market.