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Imitation Brook Trout
Fork any cold boiled fish into flakes and wet them down with this here sauce: 3 TABLESPOONS BUTTER 1/2 CUP FLOUR I CUP HOT MILK SALT RED PEPPER LEMON JUICE Mix well, let cool, and then shape into little fat fish about the size and figure of brook trout, dip in cracker crumsywumsyies, then in egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water and again in the you-know-what. Fry in deep fat, drain, and serve piping hot.
This is a fish croquette shaped for the joke: a very stiff white sauce binds flaked cooked fish, and the mixture is moulded into little trout before frying. The hinge is chilling — warm mixture will slump in the fat and burst the crust.
- Quantity of fishThe recipe never says how much. About 2 cups of flaked cooked fish to this amount of sauce gives a mixture that holds a shape; more and it crumbles, less and it fries to paste.
- That flour figureThree tablespoons butter to 1/2 cup flour and 1 cup milk makes a panada, not a pouring sauce — it should be stiff enough to pull away from the pan in a mass. It is deliberate for croquettes, but the fat is light for the flour; the paste will be dry and stiff.
- Cool means chill"Let cool" should be read as at least two hours refrigerated, ideally overnight. Cold, firm mixture moulds cleanly and does not blow apart in hot fat.
- Red pepperCayenne, not paprika and not chile flakes. A generous pinch; the mixture is bland without it and without a good squeeze of lemon.
- Breading orderAs printed it goes crumbs, then egg, then crumbs again. That double coat is what keeps deep-fried croquettes intact — the first dry layer gives the egg something to grip. Chill the breaded fish again for 20 minutes before frying.
- Deep fatThe recipe gives no temperature; about 375F suits croquettes. Lower and the crust soaks; higher and the outside colours before the centre is hot. Fry a few at a time so the temperature does not crash.
- Which fishAny cooked flaky white fish, cod, haddock or leftover salmon. Skin and bone thoroughly; a single pin bone in a shape meant to look like a whole trout is unwelcome.
- YieldAbout a dozen small croquettes, serving four. Serve with lemon wedges and a thinner version of the same sauce if you want them less dry.
Mock dishes were a staple of American cookery for well over a century — mock turtle, mock apple pie, mock duck — and this belongs to the same family: cheap or leftover material dressed up in the silhouette of something prized. Brook trout was a prized catch, so a croquette moulded into trout shape reads as a joke at the expense of the angler who came back from the stream empty-handed. The technique underneath is standard croquette practice as taught in late nineteenth and early twentieth century cooking schools: a very stiff milk-and-flour panada as binder, a double crumb coat, and deep fat. The dialect voice and comic patter are plain enough in the text itself; the racial language in the surrounding framing was ordinary in print at the time and is preserved here as printed.