Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Patties Dauphine
Patties Dauphine
Roll out one and one-half pounds of brioche paste four times, then with a round tin cutter two inches in diameter, cut out of this twenty round flats; put in the center of each one of half of the rounds, a small ball of croquette preparation, then put the other rounds on top and moisten and pinch the edges together; cut them again with the same tin cutter to make them round. Spread a floured cloth on a baking-sheet, arrange the patties on it a shoVrt distance from each other, cover with a floured cloth and keep them in a warm temperature for thirty-five minutes; then put them a few at a time into boiling fat and fry till nicely browned. When cooked, drain the patties on a cloth, pile them on a folded napkin on a dish, and serve.
A fried brioche turnover with a bound croquette filling — closer to a savoury doughnut than to the baked pastry cases usually meant by "patty." Two things decide whether it works: the filling must be fully cooked and cold before it goes in, and the seam must be sealed properly or the fat gets inside.
- YieldTwenty rounds, sandwiched in pairs, gives ten patties. The text's "twenty round flats" is the count of discs, not of finished patties.
- "Roll out four times"Probably four turns of the rolled-and-folded dough rather than four passes with the pin, though the text does not say which. Keep the dough cold enough that the butter stays in the paste.
- Croquette preparationPeriod shorthand for finely minced cooked meat, poultry or fish bound with a very thick béchamel or velouté, spread on a tray, chilled solid, then rolled into balls. It must be cooked and firm before it is enclosed; the frying cooks the raw brioche but will not cook the filling.
- The warm temperatureThirty-five minutes somewhere warm; the recipe specifies no temperature. A turned-off oven with the light on works. Over-proofed patties collapse and split in the fat.
- SealingMoisten and press the edges firmly before the second cut with the same cutter, which trims the seam flush. A leaking seam floods the patty with fat.
- The fatThe recipe says only "boiling fat"; kitchens of the period generally used lard or clarified beef fat. Any neutral oil at 350-360F does the job; hotter than that and the brioche browns before the centre heats through.
- Draining and service"Drain on a cloth" means paper towel now. The folded napkin on the dish is a nineteenth-century convention for fried food — it absorbs steam and keeps the crust from softening. Serve immediately.
The name is generally traced to the Dauphine, wife of the heir to the French throne, and by the nineteenth century \had settled onto a family of preparations in which a rich, light paste is deep-fried rather than baked hes dauphine, choux paste mixed with potato pur\e. Here the same logic is applied to brioche, which puffs in the fat around a chilled croquette centre. The recipe appears in Oscar Tschirky's 1896 book, a large compilation assembled by a man who was ma\tre d'h\tel rather than chef, at a period when the working repertoire of New York hotel kitchens was French haute cuisine as taught in Paris; a dish like this uses up cooked poultry or game from the day before, which is often said to be part of why croquette preparations appear so often in hotel cookery of the period.