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Croquette of Chickens
594. Shred and chop very fine the breast of a cold chicken or fowl; have ready some good, thick white sauce, with a little glaze in it, mix it with the fowl, and put it aside to cool; when quite cold, roll it up into balls the size and shape of a walnut. Beat up one or two eggs, and have ready some very fine bread-crumbs, dip the balls into the egg, then into the crumbs three or four times, lay them on paper to dry, and just before dinner, fry them of a light brown in a little boiling lard; take them up and lay them on a sheet of paper on a sieve to drain; dish then up on a napkin, with fried parsley round. Care must be taken that they do not look greasy. Cold veal or game does as well.
RISSOLES. 595. Prepare the forcemeat as for croquettes. Make a little puff paste, roll it very thin, cut it in square pieces; put a little forcemeat on; wet round the edges of the paste, turn it over, unite the paste well together to keep in the meat. Cut it in any shape you like with cutters. It is pretty in small round balls the size of a small apple. Fry the same as rissoles, and serve on a napkin. 596. RISSOLES OF TURKEY OR CHICKEN. - Pick the meat from the bones, and take off the skin; add some lean ham or tongue, with a quarter of the weight of the meat in finely grated stale bread-crumbs, a little butter, an onion boiled in two waters, and rendered as mild as possible, and finely chopped, with pepper and salt, and bind the forcemeat with two eggs beaten; roll out some puff-paste, very thin, cut it in square pieces, and lay a teaspoonful of the forcemeat in the centre; fold the paste up, taking care to unite the edges, which should be smooth and moistened with water. Dip each rissole in crumbs, and fry them dry in lard. Crisp parsley is a good garnish for this dish.
A straightforward use for leftover roast chicken: bound with a stiff white sauce, chilled, breaded and fried. Everything depends on the sauce being thick enough to set solid when cold.
- The hinge: a very stiff sauceThe bechamel must be much thicker than a pouring sauce — roughly 2 tablespoons each of butter and flour to 1 cup of milk, cooked out until it pulls away from the pan. A loose sauce gives croquettes that burst in the fat.
- GlazeThe "little glaze" is meat stock boiled down to a syrupy consistency (glace de viande). A teaspoon of concentrated chicken stock reduction, or a good commercial glace de volaille, does the same job of deepening the flavour.
- Proportions, since none are givenSomething like 2 cups of finely chopped cooked chicken to 1 cup of the stiff sauce works. That will give a dozen or more walnut-sized balls.
- Chill properly"Put it aside to cool" means several hours in the refrigerator, ideally overnight. Warm or barely cool mixture cannot be rolled and will not hold its coating.
- Double breadingDipping "three or four times" is more than needed; egg then crumbs, repeated once, gives a shell that holds. Laying the coated balls on paper to dry, as the recipe directs, is what keeps the crust from splitting.
- Frying fat and temperatureLard is still excellent here but any neutral fat works. Hold it at 350–375F: hotter and the crust colours before the centre warms through, cooler and they absorb fat, which is the greasiness the recipe warns against. Two to three minutes is enough since the meat is already cooked.
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs thoroughly before they go into hot fat, and stand back — wet parsley spits violently. A few seconds turns it brilliant green and brittle.