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Swedish Timbales
3/4 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 cup milk 1 egg 1 tablespoon olive oil Mix dry ingredients, add milk gradually, and beaten egg; then add olive oil. Shape, using a hot timbale iron, fry in deep fat until crisp and brown; take from iron and invert on brown paper to drain.
To Heat Timbale Iron. Heat fat until nearly hot enough to fry uncooked mixtures. Put iron into hot fat, having fat deep enough to more than cover it, and let stand until heated. The only way of knowing when iron is of right temperature is to take it from fat, shake what fat may drip from it, lower in batter to three-fourths its depth, raise from batter, then immerse in hot fat. If batter does not cling to iron, or drops from iron as soon as immersed in fat, it is either too hot or not sufficiently heated. To Form Timbales. Turn timbale batter into a cup. Lower hot iron into cup, taking care that batter covers iron to only three-fourths its depth. When immersed in fat, mixture will rise to top of iron, and when crisp and brown may be easily slipped off. If too much batter is used, in cooking it will rise over top of iron, and in order to remove timbale it must be cut around with a sharp knife close to top of iron. If the cases are soft rather than crisp, batter is too thick and must be diluted with milk.
Fill cases with Creamed Oysters, Chicken, Sweetbreads, or Chicken and Sweetbreads in combination with Mushrooms.
A rosette-iron batter, thin as crepe batter, fried into crisp shells for creamed fillings. Almost everything depends on the iron being at the same temperature as the fat.
- The hinge: iron temperatureThe iron must be brought to the right heat in the fat or the batter will not cling; the recipe warns that batter dropping off can mean the iron is either too hot or not hot enough. Expect the first attempt or two to fail.
- Fat temperature"Nearly hot enough to fry uncooked mixtures" points to a moderate deep-fat heat, roughly 360-370F by modern reckoning. Too cool and the shells absorb fat and go limp; too hot and they colour before they crisp.
- The iron itselfA timbale iron is what is now sold as a rosette or timbale iron, a small brass or cast-iron form on a long handle. New irons need seasoning in hot fat before first use; nonstick coatings will not work here, since the batter has to grip the metal.
- Batter consistencyThe note about soft cases is the real diagnostic: if the cases come out soft rather than crisp, the batter is too thick. Thin with milk a teaspoon at a time.
- OilThe tablespoon of olive oil is there for tenderness rather than flavour; a mild oil suits the batter better than a modern peppery extra-virgin.
- Frying mediumThe original assumes a deep kettle of frying fat. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point does the same job; use enough that the iron is more than covered, as the recipe directs.
- Yield and holdingYield depends on the iron, but expect somewhere in the region of a dozen and a half small shells. Drain on paper, cool completely, and store airtight; they can be recrisped briefly in a low oven, and should be filled only at the moment of serving, or they soften.
Timbale in French names a kettledrum and also a cup or mould, and in cookery a mould-shaped dish; by the late nineteenth century American cookbooks had attached the word to these fried batter cases, made on a long-handled iron. They belong to the era of the creamed entree, when oysters, chicken or sweetbreads in white sauce were standard luncheon and supper fare in households with a cook, and the crisp shell supplied the contrast that a soft filling lacked. The "Swedish" label is traditional rather than documented and probably reflects the kinship with Scandinavian rosette cookies, which use the same style of iron and a similar batter. Sweetbreads in the filling list are a reminder of how routinely offal appeared on genteel American menus before the First World War.