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Pineapple Fritters
Pare and grate a ripe pineapple, saving all of the juice; with this mix two cupfuls of flour, the yolk of one egg, a little salt and a tablespoonful of melted butter, with enough water to make a batter thick enough to hold a drop from the end of the spoon for a moment or two. Have ready before the fire a frying-kettle half full of fat, and when it commences to smoke, quickly stir the white of a beaten egg into the batter, and then drop the batter by the tablespoonful into the hot fat; fry the fritters until they become of a golden brown color. Remove them from the fat with a skimmer, and lay them for a moment to brown on a piece of paper free from fat. They may then be arranged neatly on a fancy dish, and dusted over with powdered sugar and served.
A straightforward drop-batter fritter, with one real problem: the original tells you to fry when the fat begins to smoke, which is hotter than any modern frying fat should ever get.
- Fat temperatureIgnore "when it commences to smoke." Use a thermometer and hold the fat at 365-375F; smoking fat is past its smoke point, will taste acrid, and will brown the outside before the batter cooks through. Lacking thermometers, recipes of this period commonly gave visible cues such as smoking fat, as this one does.
- The frying-kettleA deep, heavy pot half full of fat; "before the fire" is hearth phrasing, and in practice means set over a good steady heat. Half full is generous for a modern pot; three to four inches of fat is enough, and leave several inches of clearance so the batter does not boil it over.
- Batter consistencyThe test given is the useful one: the batter should cling to the spoon and hold a hanging drop for a second or two before letting go. Grated pineapple varies enormously in juice, so add water by the spoonful rather than to a fixed measure.
- Fold, do not stirThe beaten white goes in at the last moment to lighten the batter. Fold it in with a spatula; stirring it, as written, knocks out the air the fritters depend on for their interior.
- Grating the pineapplePare and core first, then grate on a coarse box grater or pulse briefly in a food processor, catching all liquid. Canned crushed pineapple, well drained of syrup, works but gives a sweeter, softer fritter.
- Draining"Paper free from fat" simply means paper not already greasy. Paper towels or a rack over a sheet pan do the job; a rack keeps the undersides crisper.
- Sugar and yield"Powdered sugar" here is finely ground sugar, i.e. confectioners' sugar; dust it once the fritters have stopped steaming so it does not go damp. The batter is a large quantity and will make several dozen tablespoon-sized fritters, and they are best within minutes of frying.
Fritters of every sort were standard American dessert and entremets fare through the nineteenth century, and Oscar Tschirky's book gives versions with apple, banana, orange and rice alongside this one. What dates the pineapple version is the fruit itself: fresh pineapple reached New York in quantity once fast steamers made the run from the West Indies and Florida routine, and by the 1890s it had gone from a centerpiece luxury to something a large hotel kitchen could grate into a batter without thinking twice. Oscar, maitre d'hotel at the Waldorf from its opening in 1893, was not a chef by trade, and the recipes collected under his name read as the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen rather than as invention. The instruction to set the kettle "before the fire" reads as a holdover from open-hearth phrasing that persisted in print after coal and gas ranges had replaced the hearth.