No. 2782

Potato Croquettes, in Surprise and Maisienne

Croquettes de Pommes de Terre en Surprise et a la Maisienne

Obtain one pound of very hot mashed potato preparation (No. 2798), and rub it through a sieve; put it into a saucepan with two ounces of butter, work it well with salt, nutmeg and four egg-yolks; let get cold, then form it into cylindrical croquettes an inch in diameter by two and a quarter inches in length; roll them in bread crumbs, then in beaten egg and again in bread-crumbs; smooth this breading with a knife, and fry a few at a time in hot frying fat; drain and dress on a napkin.

In Surprise.-Use the same preparation as for the above; form into round croquettes instead of cylindricals, and in the center of each one insert a half-inch diameter ball of consistent chestnut puree (No. 712); bread-crumb and fry them the same as the potato croquettes.

Maisienne Croquettes.-Have a pound of the mashed potato preparation (No. 2798), put it into a saucepan with an ounce of butter, two egg-yolks, half a pint of bechamel sauce (No. 409), and the same quantity of green corn, the grains scraped free of skin; mix well and leave till cold; with this form two and a half inch cylindrical croquettes, having them an inch and a quarter thick; roll in eggs and bread-crumbs, fry in plenty of hot frying fat, drain and serve on folded napkins.

← No. 2781 Potatoes, Cream Of, Baked Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes No. 2783 Potatoes, Dauphine →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three variations on one base: a stiff, egg-enriched potato paste that must be dry enough to hold a shape before it ever meets the fat. Ranhofer assumes you have his mashed potato preparation (No. 2798) already made and still hot.

The hinge: a dry potato baseCroquettes burst because the paste is wet. Bake or steam floury potatoes rather than boiling them, rice them while very hot so the steam escapes, and dry the puree over low heat for a minute or two before the butter and yolks go in. Rubbing through a sieve, as directed, is not fussiness — it removes lumps that create weak points in the crust.
Chill until firm, not merely coldThe text says only "let get cold." In practice that means chilling until the paste is genuinely firm rather than just cooled; chilling again after breading also helps, as a cold, set interior is what keeps the croquettes intact in the fat.
Frying temperatureThe recipe specifies only "hot frying fat," with no fat named; period deep-frying generally used rendered animal fats. Modern equivalent is 350-375F, deep enough to float the croquettes, a few at a time so the temperature does not crash. They need only two to three minutes — the filling is already cooked and you are colouring the crust.
The double breadingCrumb, egg, crumb again is deliberate and worth following: the first layer of crumbs gives the egg something to grip on a slick potato surface. Smoothing with a knife, as the text says, seals seams and prevents blowouts.
Half a pint of béchamelThat is one US cup, which is a great deal of sauce for a pound of potato. Make the béchamel very thick (a sauce that mounds on the spoon), or reduce the quantity; otherwise the Maisienne mixture will never firm up enough to shape.
Green cornFresh sweet corn cut from the cob in its milky stage. "Scraped free of skin" means pressing the pulp out of the hulls with the back of a knife after cutting the tops off the kernels, leaving the tough pericarp behind. Frozen kernels can substitute but will not give the same creamy pulp.
Chestnut purée for the SurpriseChestnut puree for the Surprise -- The text calls for a "consistent" (stiff) chestnut puree, No. 712, used here as a savoury filling. Canned or vacuum-packed chestnuts mashed dry with a little butter work; avoid sweetened creme de marrons, which is a dessert product and will melt and leak.
ServingA napkin on the platter absorbed fat in the days before paper towels; drain on a rack instead and serve immediately. One pound of potato base yields roughly twelve to sixteen croquettes, enough for four to six as a garnish alongside a roast.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book reads as a working reference for a large professional kitchen: numbered recipes that cross-refer to one another, so that a single croquette entry assumes you already have mashed potato preparation No. 2798, béchamel No. 409 and chestnut purée No. 712 standing by. Potato croquettes themselves belong to the classical French repertoire of the period, where deep-fried shaped purées — dauphine, duchesse, croquette — were a standard way to dress a plate of roast meat. "En surprise" is the old menu convention for a hidden centre revealed at the first cut, a device applied to everything from croquettes to bombes glacées. "Maisienne" is generally read as a coinage from maïs, corn, and its presence here is a small piece of Americanisation: green corn scraped from the cob was a New York summer ingredient that a Paris-trained chef would not have found in a French manual.