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Salmon Croquettes No.1
1 can salmon. 1 cup bread crumbs. 1 cup thick white sauce. If desired you can use half mashed potatoes and half bread crumbs. Add to white sauce the minced salmon and bread crumbs. When cold shape, dip in crumbs, egg, crumbs and fry in hot fat. Serve with lemon quarters.
A terse formula that assumes you already know how croquettes behave. The proportions are sound, but two things go unsaid: the sauce must be stiff enough to set solid, and the mixture must be thoroughly cold before shaping.
- The hinge: chill hardThe mixture has to be cold and firm before shaping; a few hours in the refrigerator will do it. Croquettes shaped from barely-cool paste burst in the fat and empty themselves into the pan.
- "Thick white sauce"Thicker than a pouring sauce. Use 3 tablespoons butter and 3 tablespoons flour to 1 cup milk, cooked until it pulls away from the sides of the pan in a mass. An ordinary 2-and-2 bechamel will not hold the croquette together.
- The can of salmonMost likely the tall one-pound can, nominally 16 oz. A modern 14.75 oz can is the nearest equivalent; two 6 oz cans also work. Drain well, and either discard the skin and vertebrae or mash the soft bones in.
- SeasoningThe recipe gives none. Season the finished mixture assertively: salt, white pepper, a little cayenne, lemon juice, and chopped parsley. Canned salmon and flour paste are both flat without it.
- Breading order"Crumbs, egg, crumbs" is deliberate, not a slip. The first light coat of dry crumbs gives the beaten egg something to grip on a damp surface. Beat the egg with a tablespoon of water, and let the breaded croquettes rest 15 minutes before frying.
- Frying fat"Hot fat" means deep fat, hot enough to brown quickly: around 375F on a modern thermometer. Too cool and the croquettes soak; too hot and the crust colors before the center warms through. Two to three minutes gives a deep brown, and they need no more since everything in them is already cooked.
- The potato variationHalf mashed potato for half the crumbs makes a softer, moister croquette that is easier to shape but more fragile in the fat. Use dry, riced potato with no added milk.
- YieldAbout eight to ten croquettes, enough for four as a main course with the lemon quarters.
Mary A. Wilson wrote for the Ladies' Home Journal and her cook book, published in 1920, still carries the marks of wartime and postwar economy: cheap protein, stretched with starch, dressed to look like a course. Canned salmon was the ingredient that made that arithmetic work. Pacific canneries had been shipping it east in quantity since the late nineteenth century, and by Wilson's day a tall can was a pantry staple in households that never saw fresh fish. Croquettes were the standard technique for turning any minced cooked protein into something that could be served with a fork and a lemon quarter, and general cookbooks of the period commonly give several.