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Rice Croquettes
Six ounces of rice and one pint of milk boiled slowly until quite soft, add the grated rind of a lemon, remove from the fire, and mix in while hot one and one-half ounces of butter, one and one-half ounces of sugar, one gill of cold milk and two yolks of eggs stirred in one at a time very hard. Return all to the fire for half a minute, then spread on a dish to cool. When cold, sprinkle a pasteboard with bread crumbs, and form the rice into oblong shapes with a tablespoon, roll in egg, then in the bread crumbs, and then in the egg, and fry in hot fat.
A straightforward rice pudding stiffened with yolks, chilled, breaded and deep-fried. The success or failure of the dish is entirely in the chilling.
- The hinge: chill it hardThe rice must be cold and firm before shaping, or the croquettes will slump and burst in the fat. Spread it no more than an inch deep and refrigerate several hours, or overnight; the original "spread on a dish to cool" assumed a cold larder and unhurried timing.
- Weights and the gillSix ounces of rice is about 7/8 cup uncooked. A gill is half a cup, so the cold milk added at the end is 1/2 cup. The butter and sugar at 1 1/2 ounces each are 3 tablespoons butter and about 3 tablespoons sugar.
- Which riceUse a short- or medium-grain rice such as arborio or pudding rice; it releases more starch and binds better. Long-grain gives a looser mixture that is harder to shape.
- Boiled slowly until quite softExpect 30 to 40 minutes over low heat, stirring often; a pint of milk to 6 ounces of rice is a tight ratio and will catch on the bottom. Add a little more milk if it stiffens before the grains collapse.
- Egg, crumbs, eggThe double coating is deliberate and worth following, though some cooks prefer to finish with crumbs rather than egg. Chill the coated croquettes another 20 minutes before frying so the crust sets.
- FryingThe recipe says only 'hot fat'; deep fat at around 375F suits. Below that the croquettes soak and split; above it the crumbs darken before the centre warms through. Two to three minutes should give a deep brown.
- Yield and servingAbout ten to twelve oblong croquettes, serving four to six. As a hot dessert they want a fruit sauce, a spoonful of jam, or simply sifted sugar.
Fried rice croquettes reach the English and American dessert table by way of French cookery, where croquette comes from croquer, to crunch. Late nineteenth-century household books are full of these preparations because they solved a real problem: a leftover milk pudding, bound with yolks and given a crisp shell, became a second dish worth serving to company. The lemon rind here is the whole of the flavouring, which is characteristic of the period's plainer hot desserts.