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Cheese Croquettes
3 tablespoons fat
½ cup grated Parmesan or
3 tablespoons flour
Gruyère cheese
⅔ cup milk
Paprika
2 egg-yolks
Salt
1 cup cubes fresh mild cheese Egg and crums Make a thick white sauce with the fat, flour and milk. Add the yolks of eggs. Into this sauce stir the grated cheese, and, as soon as it melts, add the cheese cubes. Season with paprika and salt. Pour into a well-greased shallow pan to cool. When perfectly firm cut in any shape desired-circles, squares or stripsdip in fine crums, egg and again in crums. Fry in deep fat and drain on brown paper.
A cheese panade croquette: a very thick béchamel bound with yolks, studded with cheese cubes, chilled solid and fried. The original assumes you know the fundamentals of croquette work, so the useful notes are about the parts it leaves unsaid.
- Chill it hardThis is the hinge. The sauce must be refrigerated until it is genuinely firm all the way through — several hours, or overnight — or the croquettes will burst in the fat. "Perfectly firm" is not an exaggeration; the mixture should cut cleanly and hold a sharp edge.
- "Fat"In a book of this period this generally means butter, lard or a solid vegetable shortening, whichever the household had; butter gives the best flavour here. Three tablespoons fat to three tablespoons flour to ⅔ cup milk is a very stiff panade, considerably thicker than a pouring white sauce, and it is meant to be.
- Tempering the yolksAdd the yolks off the heat, or stir a spoonful of the hot sauce into them first. Dropped straight into a boiling panade they scramble and you will see flecks in the finished croquette.
- "Fresh mild cheese"A young, meltable, unaged cheese; the period phrase probably covers fresh cheeses and mild young Cheddar or a domestic "American" cheese of the era. Mild Cheddar, Monterey Jack or a young Gouda all work. The cubes should stay distinct, so cut them fairly small and fold them in gently once the grated cheese has melted.
- "Egg and crums"Crums is simply crumbs — fine dry breadcrumbs, not fresh. The recipe specifies crumb, then egg, then crumb again: the first light coat of crumbs gives the beaten egg something to grip on a slippery surface. Beat the egg with a spoonful of water so it coats thinly.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only "deep fat"; in modern terms aim for about 375°F. These are already cooked through, so you want fast browning — a couple of minutes — before the interior liquefies and finds a weak point in the crust. Fry three or four at a time so the oil temperature holds.
- DrainingBrown paper meant unglazed wrapping or kitchen paper of the sort grocers' bags were made from. Use a wire rack over a sheet pan; paper towels work but the underside softens. Serve within a few minutes, while the centre is still molten.
- YieldDepending on the size you cut, roughly a dozen or so croquettes; enough for four as a first course or a light supper dish with a green salad.
Croquettes were the workhorse of the American made-over dish: the form existed to turn leftovers and odd ends into something that could be sent to table looking deliberate. Most croquettes of the period were built on chopped meat or fish bound with a thick white sauce; this version simply substitutes cheese for the meat, making it a meatless entrée for households economising on butcher's bills. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the technique arrived in English-language cookbooks through the nineteenth-century vogue for French service. The call for Parmesan or Gruyère is worth noting — both were imported and comparatively expensive around 1900, and here half a cup of the grated stuff carries a full cup of cheap domestic cheese underneath it.