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Veal Croquettes
2 cups chopped cold cooked veal 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Few drops onion juice 1/8 teaspoon pepper Yolk 1 egg 1 cup thick sauce made of White Soup Stock Mix ingredients in order given. Cool, shape, crumb, and fry same as other croquettes.
Chicken Croquettes I 1¾ cups chopped cold cooked fowl 1/2 teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon celery salt Few grains cayenne Mix ingredients in order given. Cool, shape, crumb, and fry same as other croquettes. 1 teaspoon lemon juice Few drops onion juice 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley 1 cup Thick White Sauce White meat of fowl absorbs more sauce than dark meat. Cro- This must be remembered if dark meat alone is used. quette mixtures should always be as soft as can be conveniently handled, when croquettes will be soft and creamy inside.
A bound-croquette formula of the classic type: cold cooked meat held together with a very thick white sauce and an egg yolk, chilled hard, then breaded and deep-fried. Everything depends on the sauce and the chilling.
- The thick sauceThe book's "Thick" white sauce uses several times the butter and flour of a pouring sauce, on the order of 3 to 4 tablespoons of each to 1 cup of liquid; check the book's own sauce table rather than relying on a single figure. Here the liquid is white stock (veal or chicken); season it before the meat goes in.
- Chill is not optional"Cool" means leaving the mixture in a cold place until it is firm; a few hours in the refrigerator, or overnight, works. A warm mixture will not shape and may burst in the fat.
- Soft as can be handledThe note at the end is the hinge of the whole method. Aim for a mixture that only just holds a cone or cylinder when cold; anything stiff enough to be easy to roll will fry dry and pasty.
- Crumb properly"Crumb" is the three-stage coat: fine dry breadcrumbs, then beaten egg thinned with a tablespoon of water, then crumbs again.
- Frying temperatureThe book gives no thermometer reading; deep fat for an already-cooked mixture was judged hot enough to brown a cube of bread quickly. In modern terms that is hot fat, a few croquettes at a time, only long enough to brown the shell, since the filling is already cooked.
- Onion juiceGrate a piece of onion on a fine grater and use the liquid that collects, or press grated onion in a sieve. A few drops is genuinely all that is wanted; it seasons without leaving raw onion texture in a smooth forcemeat.
- Chopped, not groundPeriod practice is hand-chopped meat, which keeps a little texture. A food processor will turn cooked veal to paste in seconds; pulse briefly or chop with a knife.
- YieldTwo cups of meat with a cup of sauce makes about ten to twelve croquettes, enough for four as an entrée course.
Croquettes were one of the ways a nineteenth-century American kitchen turned yesterday's roast into today's entrée, and Fannie Farmer's book gives a long run of them — veal, chicken, lobster, sweetbread, rice — all built on the same panade of thick white sauce. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the technique is generally associated with the French-trained cooking that the Boston Cooking School was busy systematizing for middle-class households without professional staff. Cold cooked veal was a predictable leftover; the croquette gave it a second appearance at table in a form respectable enough for company. The closing note about white meat absorbing more sauce than dark is characteristic of the book's method — a general principle stated once, so the cook can adjust the proportions herself rather than follow a number blindly.