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Baked Frogs' Legs
Prepare and clean one dozen frogs legs, put a thick layer of minced mushrooms and sifted brown breadcrumbs in a baking dish, lay the pieces of legs on them, season with salt and pepper strew a few sweet herbs over, also more sifted crumbs, put two or three small bits of lemon peel on the top, squeeze over the juice of a lemon, and pour in about one breakfast cupful of brown gravy. Cover the whole with a sheet of buttered paper and bake for half an hour in a moderate oven. When cooked, brown them under a salamander, and serve in the same dish.
A straightforward gratin that depends on two things Oscar's kitchen took for granted: a well-made brown gravy and a salamander for the finish. Both have modern equivalents.
- Frogs' legsSold frozen in pairs at Asian and Cajun markets, usually 6-8 pairs to the pound; thaw fully and pat dry or the dish will be watery. "One dozen" may mean a dozen pairs or twelve single legs; read as a dozen pairs it serves two as a main course or four as a first course.
- Breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup, generally reckoned at 8 to 10 fluid ounces. Take it as a generous cup of gravy, enough to come partway up the legs without submerging them.
- Brown gravyIn period usage this generally points to a brown sauce built on stock rather than plain pan drippings thickened with flour, though the term was used loosely. A well-reduced veal or chicken stock, lightly bound, is the closest practical stand-in; the crumbs will thicken it further as it bakes.
- Sifted brown breadcrumbsUsually crumbs dried and browned in the oven (some cooks meant crumbs of brown bread), sifted for evenness — closer to fine dried breadcrumbs than to panko. They are there to absorb the gravy and lemon juice into a soft layer under the legs.
- Moderate oven350F. Buttered paper is parchment cut to fit; it keeps the surface from drying while the legs steam in the gravy.
- Half an hour is longFrogs' legs are lean and small and are done in 12 to 15 minutes at 350F, at which point the flesh pulls easily from the thin bone. Beyond that they tighten and string. Check at 15 minutes and pull the paper then.
- SalamanderAn overhead broiler does the same job. Remove the paper, run the dish under high heat for a minute or two until the crumb top colors, and watch it — the lemon juice and butter darken quickly.
- Sweet herbsThe period shorthand for the mild kitchen herbs: parsley, thyme, marjoram, a little chervil. Chopped fresh, not dried and heavy-handed.
Frogs' legs were a fixture of American hotel and restaurant cooking around 1900, and Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf served them fried, in poulette sauce, and baked like this. They were largely wild-caught and shipped on ice to city markets; the commercial frog fishery was substantial enough that supply worries and early frog-farming schemes became newspaper subjects. The dish itself is French in construction — a gratin of crumbs, mushrooms, herbs and brown sauce, finished under a salamander — and the salamander in question was a real object, an iron plate or disc heated red and held above the dish to glaze it, still standard equipment in professional kitchens when this book appeared.