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French Fritters
Take two cups of milk, add pinch of soda, and heat in double boiler. Moisten two tablespoons of cornstarch with a little cold milk, and, when dissolved, turn it into the hot milk. Stir until thick. Remove from fire, beat in a tablespoon of melted butter, three beaten eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla. Pour into a pan and set aside until cool. Cut the mixture into small triangles, dip in batter and fry in deep fat. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
This is fried pastry cream — a thick cornstarch custard chilled until sliceable, then battered and dropped in deep fat. The whole dish hinges on the chill, so plan for it.
- Chill it hard"Set aside until cool" understates the matter. Pour the custard about 3/4 inch deep into a lightly oiled 8-inch square pan, press plastic film onto the surface, and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Anything softer than firm cheese will slump the moment it hits the fat.
- The eggs need heatThree whole eggs beaten into a mixture already off the fire will not set reliably, and the custard may stay loose. Return the pan to low heat (or the double boiler) after the eggs go in and cook, stirring, two or three minutes until it is very stiff and no longer tastes of raw egg.
- Pinch of sodaThe soda was most likely there to keep the milk from curdling or catching, a habit from the days when milk was not always fresh. With modern pasteurized milk it does little, and too much gives a soapy taste; leave it out or use a scant pinch.
- Cornstarch quantityTwo tablespoons of cornstarch to two cups of milk is on the slack side for something meant to be cut and handled. Three tablespoons gives a custard that slices cleanly.
- The batterNone is specified. A thin coating batter of 1 cup flour, 1 egg, and about 2/3 cup milk works, or dip the triangles in beaten egg and fine dry breadcrumbs, which fries crisper and holds the custard better.
- Fat temperature375F. Cooler and the batter absorbs fat before it seals; hotter and the coating colors before the custard inside warms. Fry two or three pieces at a time so the temperature does not crash, about 1 to 2 minutes to a deep gold.
- Yield and servingAn 8-inch pan cuts into roughly 16 to 20 triangles, enough for four to six. Serve within minutes of frying, dusted with confectioners' sugar; they go soft as they stand.
What this book calls French Fritters is a version of what French cooks call crème frite — a stiff pastry cream, chilled, cut, crumbed or battered, and fried. The technique of thickening milk enough to slice it is old and widespread: Italy has crema fritta, Spain leche frita, and Anglo-American cookbooks of the late nineteenth century carried it under labels like fried cream or fried custard. Here it is thickened with cornstarch rather than the flour or egg yolks a French kitchen would use. Cornstarch was widely available as a cheap pantry staple by the later nineteenth century, and household books used it freely for puddings, blancmanges and sauces. Butterick, a pattern company publishing for the ordinary sewing-and-cooking household rather than for professional kitchens, ran to this sort of dressed-up economy: a French name on a dish made from milk, eggs and starch.