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Potato Apples
2 cups hot riced potatoes 2 tablespoons butter 1/3 cup grated cheese 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Slight grating nutmeg 2 tablespoons thick cream Yolks 2 eggs Mix ingredients in order given, and beat thoroughly. Shape in form of small apples, roll in flour, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain on brown paper. Insert a clove at both stem and blossom end of each apple.
A croquette dressed up as fruit, from the potato chapter of Fannie Farmer's book. The mixture is straightforward; the trouble is all in keeping the shaped apples together in the fat.
- Riced potatoesPush hot boiled potatoes through a ricer or food mill, never a food processor, which turns them gluey. Something on the order of a pound to a pound and a quarter of potatoes gives 2 cups riced.
- Work while hotThe butter, cheese and yolks must go into the potato while it is still steaming, so the fat melts and the yolks bind. A cooled mash will not hold a shape and will crack open in the fryer.
- Grated cheeseThe recipe specifies only "grated cheese"; a dry aged cheese such as Parmesan or a firm aged cheddar works. Pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch and gives a slightly chalky result.
- Thick creamPeriod "thick cream" corresponds roughly to today's heavy cream. Keep to the two tablespoons; more moisture makes the mixture hard to shape.
- Chill before breadingThe original omits this, but half an hour in the refrigerator after shaping makes the flour-egg-crumb coating far easier to apply and much less likely to split.
- Deep fatThe recipe gives no temperature. Somewhere in the 375-390F range suits an already-cooked mixture like this; lower and the croquettes drink oil, higher and the crust browns before the inside heats through. Fry a few at a time until evenly deep gold, a matter of a few minutes.
- DrainingBrown paper was the standard drain of the period. Use a wire rack over a sheet pan instead, which keeps the crust from steaming soft on the underside.
- The clovesThey are decoration only, set in after frying to suggest stem and blossom. Warn anyone at the table, or leave them out.
- YieldThe recipe says only "small apples"; two cups of potato should give roughly a dozen, enough as a side for four to six.
Shaping savoury mixtures to imitate other foods was common in late nineteenth-century cookery, and potato croquette mixture was well suited to it: cheap, plastic while hot, and neutral enough to take cheese, cayenne and nutmeg. Farmer's potato chapter in the 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book runs through a range of shaped and enriched potato dishes built from a similar riced base. The conceit of a false apple, complete with cloves for stem and blossom, echoes the older French tradition of trompe-l'oeil garnish, and such presentation pieces were a familiar part of cooking-school teaching.