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CROQUETTES (POTATO)
2 cups mashed potatoes
1 egg-white
4 tablespoons cream
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon onion-juice
Cooked meat, cheese or
2 egg-yolks vegetable
Crums and flour
To the mashed potato add cream or rich milk, onion-juice and salt and pepper to taste. Beat over the fire until smooth and hot. Remove, slightly cool, and add the beaten egg-yolks. Form into cylinders, or cone shapes; make a depression in each, and into this put a teaspoon of creamed chicken, minced highly seasoned meat, grated cheese, or a vegetable in cream sauce. Press the potato around the filling. Beat the egg-white slightly, dilute with a tablespoon of water, roll the croquettes in flour, egg and then in seasoned bread-crums, and fry in deep fat.
A stuffed potato croquette, hollowed and filled with whatever cooked meat, cheese or vegetable the previous day left behind. The recipe is sound; it only assumes knowledge the modern cook may not have about frying temperature and dough moisture.
- The hinge: chill before fryingThe original never says to rest the shaped croquettes, but warm, damp potato splits in hot fat and empties its filling. Refrigerate the coated croquettes at least 30 minutes, and preferably an hour, before they go into the pan.
- Dry the potatoBeating the mashed potato over the fire until "smooth and hot" also drives off moisture. Keep it moving until the mixture is thick enough to hold a shape; a wet mash will not hold a cone.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "deep fat," with no temperature; period kitchens used lard or drippings and judged the heat by how quickly a cube of bread browned. A thermometer held at 365-375F answers: below that the crumb coat absorbs fat, above it the outside colors before the filling is hot.
- Onion-juiceGrate a peeled onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a sieve; a small onion should give the teaspoon called for.
- "Crums"Dry bread crumbs, made from stale white bread grated or rolled fine, rather than the coarse flakes of modern panko. Season them with salt and pepper as directed; the coating is the only seasoning the exterior gets.
- The breading orderFlour, then the diluted egg-white, then crumbs, as written. A single beaten white thinned with a tablespoon of water makes a lighter wash than whole egg. Let the breaded shapes air-dry ten minutes before chilling so the crust sets.
- Yield and fillingTwo cups of mashed potato makes eight to ten croquettes, enough for four as a light entree. The filling should be cool and thick when it goes in; a loose cream sauce will boil and burst the shell.
- Frying in batchesThree or four at a time in a deep saucepan of at least two inches of fat. Crowding drops the temperature and gives soft, greasy crust. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the underside stays crisp.
Croquettes belong to the late-nineteenth-century interest in making leftovers respectable. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the form was popularized in American cookbooks by the French-influenced cooking-school teachers of the later nineteenth century, who gave remnant meat a shape and a sauce. The Butterick book, published by a pattern company, treats the technique as a chassis rather than a recipe: the potato casing is fixed and the interior is whatever is on hand, which is the practical genius of the thing. Deep-frying at home was ordinary work in a kitchen that already kept a crock of rendered fat, and the same kettle would have served for doughnuts and fish.