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Turkey Croquettes
Cut the meat off the breast of a cold cooked turkey, trim off the skin and fat and cut the lean into small squares; put them into a saucepan with an equal quantity of rice that has been boiled in broth till dry and of whole grain, sprinkle in one tablespoonful of curry powder and keep it covered. Pour one pint of bechamel sauce into a flat stewpan and boil it until reduced, stirring and adding gradually sufficient melted glaze to bring it to a creamy consistency. Mix one tablespoonful of curry powder with a small quantity of milk, stir it into the sauce, then pour the whole over the meat and rice. Stir the mixture over the fire for five minutes, then turn it into a basin and leave it until cool. When firm divide the mixture into equal quantities with a tablespoon, roll them in finely grated breadcrumbs, dip them in beaten egg and roll in breadcrumbs again. Boil a quantity of lard in a fryingpan, plunge the croquettes into it and fry them until they are well and equally browned. When cooked drain them, put them on a dish-paper placed on a hot dish, garnish, and serve.
Fillets of Turkey, Milanese Remove the sinewy skin from two breast fillets that have been cut from a small raw turkey, cut the meat into slices slanting lengthwise, trim them and beat them lightly. Dip the slices in beaten egg and then in freshly-grated breadcrumbs. Melt a lump of butter in a fryingpan, put the fillets in and fry them quickly on both sides till well browned. Put a garnish of rice with mayonnaise in the center of a hot dish; when cooked arrange the fillets in a circle round it, pour over them the butter in which they were cooked, and serve them.
Two recipes have run together in this entry: the croquettes, and a Milanese fillet that follows on the same paragraph. The croquette mixture is the one that needs attention, and it hinges on a binder stiff enough to hold a shape when cold.
- The hinge: reduce far enoughThe mixture only rolls if the sauce is thick before it meets the meat. The recipe says to boil the pint of bechamel until reduced and then bring it back with glaze to a creamy consistency; in practice reduce it well, until a spoon drawn across the pan bottom leaves a channel. Underreduced sauce gives a mixture that slumps in the fryer and bursts.
- Glaze"Melted glaze" is glace de viande, stock reduced to a syrup that sets solid when cold. Commercial demi-glace or a reduced concentrated stock does the same work, though those products are often heavily salted, so add them a teaspoon at a time.
- Chilling, not cooling"Leave it until cool" understates it. Spread the mixture in a shallow pan, cover, and refrigerate at least four hours or overnight. Warm croquette farce cannot be breaded neatly.
- Curry powder twiceA tablespoon goes over the meat and rice and another goes into the sauce, so this is a firmly spiced dish, not a hint. Commercial curry powders of the period were generally milder than modern hot blends, so a modern blend at the same volume may overwhelm the turkey; taste as you go.
- Rice"Boiled in broth till dry and of whole grain" means separate grains, cooked through but not broken — long-grain, absorption method, then cooled and fluffed. Sticky or overcooked rice turns the mixture pasty.
- Frying fat and temperatureLard is still the best choice for flavour, but any fat with a high smoke point works. Bring it to 360–375F and fry in batches; below that the crumb soaks, above it the coating colours before the centre is hot.
- Breading orderAs written the croquettes go crumb, egg, crumb. The first light dusting gives the egg something to grip; flour instead of that first crumb layer does the same job.
- Dish-paperA round of pierced or lace-cut paper laid on the serving dish to absorb fat. A folded napkin, or simply draining on a rack, replaces it.
- YieldDepends entirely on the size of the bird and how large you shape them; a breast with an equal volume of rice makes a substantial quantity of farce, enough for a course for several people.
- The Milanese filletsThese are a separate recipe: plain breaded turkey cutlets, pan-fried in butter and arranged round a garnish of rice with mayonnaise. The recipe says only to beat the slices lightly; even thin slices cook in a few minutes a side, and the butter should not brown past nut colour since it is poured over as the sauce.
Croquettes were one way a kitchen could use cold roast meat, and a turkey breast left over from a large service is the kind of surplus a kitchen like the Waldorf's might plausibly have had to account for. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896, records the working repertoire of a house that fed enormous numbers of people, and the curry here appears to use mild commercial curry powder as a seasoning for reheated poultry and rice rather than as any attempt at an Indian dish. The technique is straight from the French professional kitchen: bind diced meat with a heavily reduced sauce fortified with meat glaze, chill it solid, shape, crumb and deep-fry. The Milanese fillets that follow show the other route the same breast could take when raw — breaded and fried in butter, a treatment generally traced to the Italian cotoletta.