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Potato Apples
2 cups hot riced potatoes 2 tablespoons butter 1/3 cup grated cheese 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Slight grating nutmeg 2 tablespoons thick cream Yolks 2 eggs Mix ingredients in order given, and beat thoroughly. Shape in form of small apples, roll in flour, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain on brown paper. Insert a clove at both stem and blossom end of each apple.
A cheese-enriched potato croquette dressed up as fruit — the kind of trompe l'oeil garnish that filled the vegetable chapters of turn-of-the-century cookbooks. The mixture is simple; the whole success lies in getting it dry and cold enough to hold its shape in the fat.
- Dry the potatoes firstRiced potatoes must be steamed dry over low heat for a minute or two before the butter and yolks go in. A wet mixture will slump into balls in the fryer and can burst its coating.
- Chill before breadingThe original mixes and shapes hot riced potato, with no cooling step given. Shape them, then refrigerate 30 minutes before the flour-egg-crumb coating, and again briefly after. Cold croquettes hold their form.
- Thick creamThis means heavy cream, around 36% fat. Half-and-half or milk adds too much water for a mixture that has to be fried.
- Few grains cayenneA pinch — roughly 1/16 teaspoon. It is there to sharpen the cheese, not to be tasted as heat.
- Grated cheeseAn unspecified hard grating cheese in this period could mean Parmesan or a dry aged cheese. Either works; use a dry one, as a moist cheese loosens the mixture.
- Deep fat temperatureFry at 375F. Cooler than that and the crumb coating absorbs fat before it sets; hotter and the crust colours before the inside is hot. Two to three minutes gives a deep gold.
- DrainingBrown paper was the standard blotter of the era. A rack set over a sheet pan is better, since it keeps the underside crisp; paper towels will do for a moment's blotting.
- The clovesThey are decoration, standing in for stem and calyx. Pull them out before eating — a whole clove bitten into is unpleasantly medicinal.
- YieldTwo cups of potato gives about a dozen small apples, enough for four to six as a side dish with roast or braised meat.