No. 3019

Croquettes of Semolina, Pistachio Sauce

Croquettes de Semoule, Sauce aux Pistaches

Boil a quart of milk, add to it half a split vanilla stick and keep it warm in a covered saucepan; take out the vanilla and place the milk on a hot fire, and at the first boil drop into it like rain six ounces of semolina, stirring the preparation continuously with a whisk, and cover the saucepan; push it into a slack oven and take it out again fifteen minutes later. Mix in with the semolina four ounces of sugar, two ounces of butter, a little salt and eight egg-yolks; stir in well with a spoon two ounces of apricot, two ounces of cherries, an ounce of pineapple and an ounce of orange peel, all cut in quarter-inch dice. Spread this on a baking sheet covered over with paper and let it get cold. Then divide it into inch and a half diameter balls; roll these in powdered macaroous, dip in beaten egg, and finally roll in white bread-crumbs; fry to a fine color, drain on a cloth, wipe and bestrew with vanilla sugar. Dress the croquettes on a napkin and serve separately an English cream sauce (No. 3004), into which has been added green pistachios shredded finely.

← No. 3018 Croquettes of Rice with Orange, Raspberry Sa Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3020 Croustades of Venice, Meringued →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic Escoffier-era fried pudding: stiff vanilla semolina studded with candied fruit, breaded and deep-fried, sauced with pistachio custard. The whole thing hinges on the paste being cold and firm before you shape it.

Chill it properlyThe spread paste must be thoroughly cold and set before dividing — several hours, or overnight in the refrigerator. Warm or soft paste will burst its crust in the fryer, and no amount of extra crumb will save it.
"Slack oven"Around 275-300F. The covered pan goes in only to let the semolina swell gently without scorching; a low burner with the lid on for the same fifteen minutes does the same job.
SemolinaUse fine semolina (semolina flour or semolina for puddings), not coarse couscous-grade grain. Six ounces to a quart of milk gives a paste stiff enough to slice cold. Rain it in slowly while whisking or it will lump instantly.
Eight yolks off the heatEight yolks -- The recipe adds the yolks straight after the pan comes out of the oven, along with the sugar, butter and salt. Let the mass stand a moment off the fire and stir briskly as they go in, so they blend rather than set in streaks.
The fruitApricot, cherries, pineapple and orange peel here mean candied (glacé) fruit, not fresh — fresh fruit releases water and makes the paste too loose to fry. Rinse off excess syrup and dry the dice before folding in.
"Powdered macaroous"A typesetting error for macaroons: dried almond macaroons crushed to a powder. Amaretti crumbs are the closest modern stand-in. This first coat gives the crust its flavour; the egg and fresh white breadcrumbs follow.
FryingDeep-fry at 350-360F, a few at a time. Hotter and the crumb colours before the centre warms through; the interior only needs to be hot, not cooked further. Two to three minutes is usually enough.
The sauceNo. 3004, "English cream," is crème anglaise — milk, yolks, sugar and vanilla stirred to the coating stage and never boiled. Unsalted pistachios, blanched and finely shredded, are stirred in at the end; the green comes from the nuts, not colouring.

A Little History

Croquettes of this kind belong to the French repertoire of entremets sucrés, the sweet course that closed a formal service, and Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) — written from his years at Delmonico's in New York — catalogues dozens of variations on the same idea: a stiff milk pudding of rice, semolina or frangipane, chilled, shaped, breaded and fried. The technique is thrifty in origin and grand in execution, turning cereal and milk into something that can be dressed on a folded napkin and sent out with a sauceboat. Semolina, the coarse endosperm of durum wheat, was one of the grains long used in European milk puddings. The pistachio custard is a period signature: pistachios were expensive imports valued as much for their green as their flavour.