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Potato Croquettes
To four teacups of finely mashed hot potatoes add two tablespoons of sweet cream or milk, one tablespoon of salt, a saltspoon of white pepper and a speck of red pepper. Mix well, beat the potatoes until light, and when they have cooled a little, add the thoroughly whipped yolks of two eggs. Shape the mass into oblong or pear-shaped croquettes, roll them in fine bread crumbs, dip them in beaten egg, and again roll in crumbs. Fry at once, until of a fine brown hue, in smoking hot lard. The croquettes may be rendered more dainty by rubbing the potato mixture through a sieve before adding the eggs; and their flavor may be improved to some tastes by putting in a tablespoon of chopped parsley, a few drops of onion juice or four or five gratings of nutmeg with the egg. Indeed, those who like French flavorings use all three of these seasonings. Short, leafless stalks of parsley thrust into pear-shaped croquettes after the manner of stems will render them very ornamental.
A straightforward potato croquette, workable as written with two caveats: the salt and the instruction to fry immediately.
- The salt is out of scaleA full tablespoon of salt for roughly three cups of mashed potato is punishing by modern palates. Start with a teaspoon and taste the mixture before the egg goes in.
- Teacups and saltspoonsA teacup is conventionally reckoned at about 6 fl oz, so four of them is roughly 3 cups of mashed potato, from about 2 lb of potatoes; period usage was not uniform. A saltspoon is generally taken as a quarter teaspoon.
- Dry potatoes are the hingeRussets or another floury potato, baked or boiled whole in their skins and dried out over low heat for a minute, give a mixture that holds. Waterlogged potato will slump in the fat no matter how carefully it is crumbed.
- Do not fry at onceShaped and breaded croquettes hold together far better after 30 to 60 minutes in the fridge, and the crust sets more cleanly. The original's reason for insisting on immediate frying is not given.
- Smoking hot lard means about 375FSmoking hot lard -- The recipe gives no temperature; lard begins to smoke somewhere around 370F, so treat 350 to 375F as the working range and use a thermometer. Lard was the fat specified here; a neutral oil with a high smoke point is a direct swap. Fry a few at a time so the temperature does not crash, three to four minutes to a deep brown.
- Onion juiceGrate a piece of onion on a fine grater and press the pulp through a sieve, or squeeze it in a cloth. A few drops is genuinely all that is wanted; more turns the interior wet.
- Double crumbingCrumb, egg, crumb is the sequence given and it is the right one. Fine dry crumbs, not fresh, or the coating goes patchy in the fat.
- YieldRoughly twelve croquettes of a size to serve four as a side dish.
Croquettes came into English-language cookbooks from French practice, the name from croquer, to crunch, and by 1900 they were a fixture of American domestic cookery precisely because they turned leftovers into something that looked composed on a plate. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, issued cookbooks aimed at exactly that reader. Hence the closing flourish of parsley stalks stuck into pear-shaped croquettes, a piece of garde-manger whimsy that turns mashed potato into a small still life.