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Meat Croquettes
Veal, mutton, lamb, beef and turkey croquettes may be prepared in the same way as chicken croquettes. The secrets of success are to have the croquettes well coated with egg and crumbs and the fat sufficiently hot. Olive oil, cottolene, suetine, lard, or a mixture of any of these with drippings will serve the purpose; but olive oil is best. 1 cup boiled rice 1 egg 1 teaspoon sugar
This is a cross-reference entry: the method lives under chicken croquettes, and what appears here is the variation plus the frying advice. The stray line of ingredients at the end belongs to a neighbouring recipe on the leaf, not to the croquettes.
- The hinge is the binder, not the fryingThe binder matters as much as the frying. Croquettes of this era are generally built on cooked minced meat bound with a very thick white sauce; period recipes commonly work to something like 2 tablespoons each butter and flour to 1 cup milk per 2 cups meat, though this page gives no quantities and the method sits under chicken croquettes. The mixture is usually spread on a plate and chilled cold and firm before shaping, or the croquettes are apt to burst in the fat.
- Fat temperatureThe book gives no figure. By modern deep-frying practice 'sufficiently hot' would be about 375F: below that the crumbs soak fat and the coating slides off; much above it the outside colours before the cold interior heats through. Fry two or three at a time so the temperature does not crash.
- Cottolene and suetineCottolene was a branded cottonseed-oil-and-beef-suet shortening; suetine appears to have been a comparable suet-based compound fat, though it is far less well documented. Neither is sold now. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil, or lard, does the same work.
- Olive oilThe book's preference may reflect an era of unrefined, strongly flavoured frying fats, though it gives no reason. Ordinary (not extra virgin) olive oil holds 375F comfortably, but it is an expensive way to deep-fry.
- CoatingEgg-and-crumb once, chill 30 minutes, then egg-and-crumb again for meats that are wet or loosely bound. Dry fine crumbs, not fresh, and press them on firmly.
- Leftover meat, cooked twiceThe meat should be already cooked and finely chopped or ground, not raw. Fry only long enough to brown and heat through, about 3 minutes; longer dries the interior to sawdust.
- YieldThe page gives no quantities. Working from a typical period batch of about 2 cups minced meat with sauce, expect roughly 10 to 12 cork-shaped croquettes, enough for four as a main course with a sauce or gravy.
- The trailing ingredients"1 cup boiled rice, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon sugar" carries no method and does not belong to croquettes. Treat it as an orphaned fragment from a neighbouring entry rather than an instruction.
Croquettes take their name from the French croquer, to crunch, and by the late nineteenth century they had become the standard American answer to the Sunday joint's remains: yesterday's meat minced, bound in a stiff sauce, breaded and fried into something that could be served without apology. Here that comes down to one master method for chicken croquettes and a short leaf pointing veal, mutton, lamb, beef and turkey at it. The list of frying fats dates the page as clearly as anything on it: cottolene and suetine were branded compound shortenings of the cottonseed-oil boom, marketed hard against lard in the decades either side of 1900 and gone from kitchens within a generation.