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Egg Croquettes
Boil eighteen eggs hard, separate the whites from the yolks after removing the shells. Chop the whites small, and rub the yolks of six of the eggs through a fine hair-sieve. Put two onions, cut into small pieces, in a fryingpan with four ounces of butter, and fry but not brown; then add one tablespoonful of flour and mix thoroughly, pour in sufficient boiling milk to just moisten the whole, and season with a little salt and pepper. When the sauce is ready, put in the six yolks and the whites, stir well, and let the mixture cool. Form it into croquettes, spread these over with breadcrumbs, fry them in boiling fat to a light brown, and serve. The remainder of the yolks can be used for other purposes.
A stiff egg panada shaped, crumbed and deep-fried — the sort of meatless luncheon dish that filled out a hotel menu. The whole recipe hinges on how little milk goes into the sauce.
- The hinge: keep the sauce very thick"Sufficient boiling milk to just moisten the whole" means a paste, not a pouring sauce — think stiff enough to hold a spoon upright. Add the milk a little at a time and stop as soon as the mixture coheres. Any wetter and the croquettes will slump in the fryer and burst.
- Chill before shapingOscar says only to let the mixture cool. Refrigerate it at least two hours, and preferably until cold and firm, before rolling; warm croquette paste will not hold its shape in hot fat.
- Crumbs alone will not stickStandard kitchen practice then and now is flour, beaten egg, then crumbs. Dry breadcrumbs pressed onto bare croquette paste shed in the fryer; use the three-stage breading and let the coated croquettes rest 20 minutes.
- "Boiling fat"Deep fat at 350–375F. Fat does not boil; the phrase means hot enough to bubble vigorously the moment food goes in. Two to three minutes gives the light brown he asks for, since everything inside is already cooked.
- Units and equipmentFour ounces of butter is 113 g, one US stick. A fine hair-sieve is any fine-mesh sieve; a box grater's smallest holes or a potato ricer will do the same job on hard yolks.
- The flour looks light because it isOne tablespoon of flour to 4 oz of butter is not a conventional roux. The real binder is the sieved yolks and chopped whites. If your paste still seems loose after chilling, work in a spoonful or two of dry breadcrumbs rather than more flour.
- Do not colour the onions"Fry but not brown" is about appearance — browned onion specks read as scorching in a pale croquette. Sweat them over low heat until translucent, and chop them very fine so they disappear into the mixture.
- Yield and the leftover yolksExpect 12 to 16 croquettes, enough for six as a first course or four as a main with a green sauce or tomato sauce. The twelve unused yolks go into mayonnaise, hollandaise, custard, or a sauce tartare.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms at the Waldorf from its opening in 1893, and the book that carries his name collects the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen at the turn of the century — which is to say, French technique adapted to enormous scale. Croquettes were central to that repertoire: they turned cooked, already-paid-for food into a hot dish that could be shaped in advance and fried to order. Egg croquettes in particular earned their place as a meatless entrée, useful on Fridays, in Lent, and on any menu that needed something substantial between the fish and the roast. The casual instruction that a dozen spare yolks "can be used for other purposes" is the clearest sign of the setting: only a kitchen with a pastry section and a sauce station running at the same time could treat twelve yolks as an inevitability rather than a problem.