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Apple Fritters
Peel and core the apples and cut into slices about a third of an inch thick; dip in batter and fry for six minutes in boiling fat. Serve on a hot dish. The apples may be sprinkled with sugar and a little nutmeg and allowed to stand for an hour before frying; in the latter case sprinkle with the sugar when they are served.
Oscar assumes a cook who already knows the house frying batter and the state of the fat; both are worth pinning down before you start.
- "Boiling fat" means 350-375FFat does not boil at frying temperature; the phrase describes the bubbling around whatever is dropped in. Use a thermometer and hold the oil at 360F, letting it recover between batches.
- Six minutes is longThird-inch rings in properly hot fat are done in three to four minutes, turned once. Six minutes may allow for a kettle of fat that dropped in temperature when the fruit went in; at a steady 360F it will darken the batter before the apple is tender.
- The batterNo batter is given here. A typical fritter batter of the period runs roughly 1 cup flour, 1 egg, about 2/3 cup milk and a pinch of salt, beaten smooth to the thickness of heavy cream. It should coat a ring without sliding off. Some versions fold in the beaten white separately for lift.
- ApplesFirm, tart, dense fruit holds the ring shape. Granny Smith, Braeburn or Northern Spy work; soft mealy apples collapse in the fat.
- Coring into ringsPeel the whole apple, take the core out with an apple corer before slicing, and you get even rings with a hole in the middle that cooks through at the same rate as the edge.
- The hour of maceratingSugar and nutmeg draw juice out of the slices. Blot them dry on a towel before dipping, or the batter will slip off in the fat. That loss of sugar may be why the recipe has you sprinkle them again at serving, though it gives no reason.
- Draining and servingOnto a rack over a sheet pan rather than paper, which steams the underside. Serve at once; fritters are limp within ten minutes.
- YieldThree medium apples give roughly 18 to 20 rings, enough for four to six as a dessert or a breakfast dish.
Fruit fried in batter is one of the oldest sweet dishes in English and French cookery, and by the time Oscar Tschirky was running the Waldorf's dining rooms at the turn of the twentieth century the apple fritter was standard hotel and household fare on both sides of the Atlantic — cheap, fast, and made from a fruit available all winter from the barrel. Its place in a book of this kind says something about how a grand hotel kitchen actually worked: alongside the terrapin and the canvasback there had to be plain, reliable sweets that a station cook could turn out to order.