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Beef Croquettes
Chop some cold beef, put a pint of poulette sauce in a stewpan, reduce it to one-half its amount, and thicken with the yolks of some eggs; put the chopped beef in the sauce, adding a little chopped parsley, salt and pepper, mixing well together, and spread out on a dish to a thickness of an inch and a half. Let it get firm and cold, and divide into sixteen equal parts. Strew a board with breadcrumbs evenly, but very thin, and put the sixteen parts of mince on it, leaving a space of two inches between each; then cover them with a similar thickness of breadcrumbs, and roll each part into the shape of a cork, making them as near an equal size as possible. Beat three whites of egg for a minute, so as to mix, but not froth them, and add a little pepper and salt, a tablespoonful of oil, and the same quantity of water. Dip the croquettes into this mixture, roll them in the breadcrumbs, and set on a plate. Twenty minutes before they are to be served have ready some hot fat, arrange the croquettes in a frying-basket, and put them in to fry, and when nearly done move them gently to insure their becoming of an even color, lift them out when a light brown color and crisp. Sprinkle with salt, dish, and serve with a garnish of parsley.
A classic use for yesterday's roast: the meat is bound in a heavily reduced sauce, chilled until sliceable, then shaped and fried. The whole thing hinges on the binding being stiff enough to hold when cold.
- Poulette sauceA velouté (blond roux with white stock) finished with lemon juice, and usually mushroom liquor, parsley and egg yolk. Oscar assumes you have a pint of it standing by; a pint is 2 cups, reduced to 1 cup before the yolks go in.
- "The yolks of some eggs"Genuinely unspecified. For a cup of reduced sauce, two to three yolks would be a reasonable proportion, but the book gives no guidance. Add them off the heat and warm gently — boiling after the yolks go in will curdle the binding and it will never set clean.
- The binding must be stiffThis is the point of failure. The reduced, yolk-thickened sauce should be thick enough to hold a spoon upright before the beef goes in; if the mixture spreads rather than sits at an inch and a half, croquettes will burst in the fat.
- Chilling time"Let it get firm and cold" means several hours, or overnight, covered, in the refrigerator. Rushing this is the second reason croquettes fail.
- The breadcrumb boardThe thin bed of crumbs above and below keeps the sticky mince from adhering to the board and gives the first coat something to hold. Use dry fine crumbs, not fresh, and not panko.
- Egg-white washThree whites with oil and water, mixed but not frothed, as the recipe insists; froth would work air into the coating. Whole eggs are more usual now and work as well.
- Frying"Twenty minutes before they are to be served" is the schedule, not the cooking time. Fat at 350–375°F; the croquettes are already cooked through and need only 2 to 4 minutes to brown and heat. Fry in two batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- YieldSixteen cork-shaped croquettes, serving four to six as a main course with the parsley garnish, or eight as a first course.
Croquettes were the standard hotel and restaurant answer to cooked meat left over from a large service. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the form — chopped meat bound in a stiff reduced sauce, chilled, breaded and deep-fried — is attested in French cookery well before the nineteenth century and was carried into American hotels by the French-trained brigades that ran them. Oscar Tschirky, who managed the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893, published his Cook Book in 1896; recipes like this one, which presume a pint of poulette sauce already made and a basket of fat already hot, are written for a kitchen with a sauce station rather than for a household cook starting from nothing.