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Chicken Rissoles
1 cup chicken forcemeat 12 pimolas, finely chopped salt, pepper and onion juice 12 rounds of puff paste Mix forcemeat, chopped pimolas, salt, pepper and onion juice. Put a teaspoon of this mixture in the center of each puff paste round; brush the edges with water; fold edges together, making a half round; press edges together firmly; dip in crumbs, egg and crumbs, and fry in deep fat.
A small fried entrée from the era when a dinner ran to several courses and each needed something hot, rich and hand-sized. The recipe assumes you already have the book's chicken forcemeat and puff paste to hand.
- PimolasA trade name of the period for green olives stuffed with pimiento, now sold simply as pimiento-stuffed olives. Twelve chopped fine give a tablespoon or two; drain them well or the wet olive will loosen the seal.
- Chicken forcemeatIn a book of this date this means cooked white chicken meat pounded or twice-ground and bound with a thick panada or cream sauce, seasoned and stiff enough to hold a shape. A food processor does the pounding in seconds; keep it cold and firm, since a soft filling forces the pastry open in the fat.
- Onion juiceGrate half an onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a sieve. A quarter teaspoon is plenty for a cup of forcemeat; presumably it was preferred to chopped onion so nothing would show in a pale filling.
- Rounds of puff pasteCut about 3 inches across from paste rolled thin, an eighth of an inch or less. Store-bought all-butter puff pastry works; roll it thinner than it comes and keep it chilled so the edges will seal rather than slide.
- SealingThis is the point the dish turns on. Water alone on the edge of cold puff pastry is a weak seal; press with the back of a fork, chill the finished rissoles for 20 minutes before crumbing, and any that gape should be set aside rather than fried.
- Crumbs, egg and crumbsThe first coat of dry crumbs gives the beaten egg something to grip on a pastry surface. Use fine dry crumbs, not panko, so the coating stays smooth.
- Deep fat375F, and no hotter. Puff pastry blisters and colours fast while the crumb coat browns, so fry three or four at a time for about 3 minutes, turning once, and drain on paper.
- YieldTwelve rissoles. Two apiece would suit an entrée course for six, with a sauce or a garnish of fried parsley. As a modern appetiser they feed eight to ten.
Rissoles came into English cookery from the French, where rissole denotes a small filled pastry fried crisp, and by the late nineteenth century they were a common American answer to leftover roast fowl: the meat reduced to forcemeat, sharpened with something salty, wrapped and fried. The stuffed olive suggests an American book of about 1900. Pimiento-stuffed olives were newly fashionable in this period, turning up in salads, sandwich fillings and canapés, and cookbooks of the period often used the trade name pimola as if it were the name of the food itself. Lowney's, published by a Boston chocolate firm, was in the common line of company cookbooks that promoted a house product but filled out the volume with a complete household repertoire — which is why a chocolate maker's book carries a full chapter of entrées.