Home › To Crisp and Fry Parsley › To Crisp and Fry Parsley
To Crisp and Fry Parsley
707. Wash and drain some sprigs of young parsley, and shake them in a cloth till well dry. Lay them on paper in a Dutch oven, and turn them frequently seven or eight minutes till crisp. If to be fried, when quite crisp add them to some lard or butter, which is boiling in a frying-pan. The moment they are again crisp, put them to drain on a cloth over a sieve.
SAVOURY RICE (a substitute for Vegetables). 708. Wash a breakfast-cup of rice in cold water, and strain it. Make a good beef gravy, well seasoned with one or two large onions; when properly flavoured, strain off all the grease, add the rice, and let it stew slowly for about an hour, stirring it occasionally. When in season, add two tomatoes and a spoonful of Hervey's sauce. The beef must be fried before making the gravy.
Two techniques in one entry: parsley dried crisp by gentle heat, and parsley flashed in hot fat as a garnish. The whole thing hinges on how dry the sprigs are before they meet the fat.
- Dry it properlyAny water clinging to the leaves will make hot fat erupt and will steam the parsley limp instead of crisping it. Shake in a towel, then spread the sprigs out and let them sit until no moisture shows on the leaf.
- "Dutch oven" hereIn period British usage this generally means the tin reflector oven that stood open in front of the fire, not the modern lidded pot. A low oven around 250-275F on a paper-lined tray will do a similar job, though the timing may not match the recipe's seven or eight minutes exactly.
- The frying takes secondsParsley that has already been dried crisp needs only a moment in the fat. Fifteen to thirty seconds at 350-375F is enough; longer and the leaves brown, turn bitter and lose their green.
- Fat depth and temperatureAn inch of lard or a neutral oil in a small pan is plenty. The recipe's "boiling" fat means fat that is shimmering and hot enough to sizzle at once, not fat smoking hard.
- Lard or butterThe recipe names lard first, and it holds up better here; whole butter browns and its milk solids burn at frying heat. Clarified butter is a workable compromise if the flavour is wanted.
- Drain flatDraining on a cloth over a sieve keeps the sprigs from sitting in their own fat. Lay them in a single layer and use them within a few minutes, while they still shatter.
- Yield and useA large handful of sprigs shrinks to a modest garnish. The recipe does not say what it was for; fried parsley was commonly used as a garnish for fried fish and cutlets.
Fried parsley was a common finishing touch in nineteenth-century English cookery, valued less for flavour than for the contrast of a dark, brittle, intensely green sprig against pale fried fish or a plain cutlet. The two-stage method here, drying first and frying second, suits a kitchen with a reflector oven before the fire, and it also solved the practical problem that damp herbs and hot lard do not mix.