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Boulettes of Potato
2 cups of mashed potatoes, 2 tablespoonfuls of cream, 1 teaspoonful of onion juice, Piece of butter the size of a walnut, Yolks of two eggs, 1 teaspoonful of powdered sweet marjoram, 1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley, Salt and pepper to taste.
Beat the yolks lightly, add the potatoes, then add all the other ingredients. Mix well, put them in a saucepan, and stir over the fire until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan. Take from the fire. When cold, form into bullets. Dip first in egg then into bread crumbs and fry in smoking hot fat. Use as a garnish to boiled or baked fish.
A straightforward potato croquette, but it depends entirely on driving moisture out of the mixture before shaping. Skip that and the boulettes burst in the fat.
- The hinge: dry the panadaStir over medium heat until the mass pulls cleanly from the sides and bottom of the pan and holds a ridge, three to five minutes. Undercooked, wet mixture will split open in the fryer and absorb grease.
- Butter the size of a walnutAbout 1 ounce, or 2 tablespoons. Period books used the walnut, the egg and the pea as standard volume references.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion on a fine grater and press the pulp through a sieve, or use the liquid squeezed from grated onion. Half a small onion will generally yield the teaspoon called for, sometimes more.
- Powdered sweet marjoramDried marjoram, rubbed fine. A teaspoon of dried is assertive; if using fresh, triple the amount.
- "Form into bullets"Most likely boulettes, small balls, as the title has it; 'bullets' may equally be the writer's own word for the shape. Either way the mixture must be cold and firm first, so allow at least an hour in the refrigerator; overnight is better.
- Frying fat"Smoking hot" is usually taken to mean somewhere around 375-390F, near the smoke point of lard. Use a thermometer and a neutral oil or lard. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash, and turn them once for even colour.
- Mashed potatoesUse dry, floury potatoes riced or put through a food mill, not a food processor, which turns them gluey. Leftover mash already loosened with milk will need extra time in the pan.
- YieldTwo cups of potato will make somewhere in the region of twenty walnut-sized boulettes, depending on how large they are rolled.
Boulette is simply French for a small ball, a diminutive of boule. The technique here is close to a pommes duchesse base -- egg yolk and butter beaten into dry mashed potato -- taken one step further by stiffening the mixture over heat so that it can be shaped. Its role as a garnish rather than a dish is telling about the period's service, where boiled or baked fish arrived on a long platter ringed with something crisp and something green, and the potato element was expected to be decorative as well as filling. Sweet marjoram was a common dried herb in Anglo-American kitchens of the era.