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Oyster and Macaroni Croquettes
1/3 cup macaroni, broken in 1/2 inch pieces 1 pint oysters 1 cup Thick White Sauce Few grains cayenne Few grains mace 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice 1/4 cup grated cheese.
Cook macaroni in boiling salted water until soft, drain in a colander, and pour over macaroni two cups cold water. Clean and parboil oysters, remove tough muscles, and cut soft parts in pieces. Reserve one-half cup oyster liquor and use in making Thick White Sauce in place of all milk. Mix macaroni and oysters, add Thick White Sauce and seasonings. Spread on a plate to cool. Shape, dip in crumbs, egg, and crumbs again, fry in deep fat, and drain.
A Fannie Farmer–school croquette from the era when oysters were cheap and every entrée passed through the fat kettle. The whole dish turns on the binding sauce being stiff enough, and the mixture cold enough, to hold its shape.
- Thick White SauceIn this school's system that means roughly equal butter and flour, on the order of 1/4 cup each, to 1 cup liquid — appreciably more flour than an ordinary cream sauce (exact proportions differ between editions). Anything thinner and the croquettes will burst in the fat.
- Oyster liquor for the milkStrain the reserved half cup through fine cloth or a coffee filter; oyster liquor carries grit and shell fragments. Note that the recipe directs it be used in place of all the milk, not merely part of it.
- Parboil means barelyHeat the oysters in their own liquor only until the edges ruffle, under a minute, then lift them out. Longer and they turn to erasers, and they still have the frying to come.
- Tough musclesThe small opaque nub where the oyster was attached to the shell. Pinch it off; it will not soften.
- The cheese and seasoningsStir the grated cheese into the sauce while it is still hot so it melts smoothly, then fold in the macaroni and oysters and add cayenne, mace and lemon juice off the heat.
- Cooling is not optionalSpread the mixture no more than an inch deep and refrigerate until firm, an hour or two. Warm croquette mixture cannot be shaped and will not survive the fat.
- Breading orderCrumbs, then beaten egg thinned with a spoonful of water, then crumbs again. Chill the shaped croquettes another 20 minutes after coating so the shell sets.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only "deep fat"; in modern terms, fat hot enough to brown quickly, around 375F. The interior is already cooked, so you are only browning the crust — two to three minutes, turning once, and drain on paper.
- YieldEnough for eight to ten small croquettes, serving four as an entrée course.
Croquettes were a staple of the American entrée course from roughly the 1880s through the 1920s: a stiff white sauce, something chopped and savoury folded into it, chilled, breaded and fried, and served in the middle of a long menu between the fish and the roast. The form suited a cook trained in the Boston Cooking School method, where "Thick White Sauce" was a set proportion learned once and applied across many dishes. Oysters carried the dish because they were still an everyday food rather than a luxury — Atlantic beds supplied them by the barrel to inland cities by rail.