No. 3559

Macedoine Croquettes

Croquettes Macedoine

Mold in tins the size and shape of a medium croquette some burnt almond cream (No. 3455), ranging exactly in the center some biscuits soaked in maraschino; freeze for half an hour, then unmold and roll in pulverized macaroons sifted through a sieve. Have in an ice cream freezer all sorts of fresh or preserved fruits cut in quarter-inch squares; to them add lemon juice, maraschino and champagne; freeze with very little ice and when extremely cold drain properly and mix in whipped cream (No. 50); dress on saucers, laying the croquettes over, one or two on each saucer.

← No. 3558 Leona Ice Cream Ices & Ice Creams No. 3560 Macedoine of Fruits and St. Jacques Cups →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has the component recipes standing by, so almost everything here is a cross-reference. Read it as an assembly job: a praline ice cream shaped into false croquettes, crumbed in macaroon dust, set on a barely frozen fruit salad.

The hinge: alcohol and freezingThe fruit mac doine carries lemon juice, maraschino and champagne, all of which depress the freezing point. Ranhofer's "freeze with very little ice," followed by "drain properly," points to a very cold but still slushy mixture rather than a solid one before the whipped cream goes in.
Burnt almond cream (No. 3455)Ranhofer's praline-type ice cream, built on almonds cooked with caramel and worked into a cream. A good praline or burnt-almond ice cream should stand in.
"Biscuits soaked in maraschino"Not cookies in the American sense but dry sponge fingers, ladyfinger or boudoir type. Maraschino here is the clear, dry Dalmatian cherry liqueur, not the syrup from a jar of bright red cherries.
Molding in tinsCroquette molds were small tapered tin cylinders. Small dariole molds, a mini muffin tin, or ice cream shaped in plastic wrap into cork-sized cylinders all work. Ranhofer specifies only "the size and shape of a medium croquette."
Half an hour is a commercial freezer's half hourIn an ice-and-salt cabinet these firmed fast. In a domestic freezer at 0F allow several hours until solid, then unmold quickly and crumb them while still hard.
Pulverized macaroonsDry almond macaroons, crushed and sifted, give a coarse sandy crumb that reads as breadcrumb on a real croquette. That visual joke is the whole point of the dish, so do not substitute cookie crumbs that brown or clump.
Whipped cream (No. 50)Ranhofer's cross-referenced whipped cream, whipped to a soft peak and typically lightly sweetened and vanilla-scented. Fold it in at the last moment and serve immediately.
Yield and serviceFigure one or two croquettes per person over a spoonful of the fruit, as written.

A Little History

Macédoine is French kitchen shorthand for a mixture of many small diced things, fruit or vegetable, and the name is generally traced to Macedonia and the many peoples gathered under Alexander's empire; it was already a settled culinary term well before Charles Ranhofer put this in The Epicurean in 1894. The dish itself is a piece of Delmonico's trompe-l'oeil showmanship, the kind of thing a chef de cuisine produced at the end of a long service dinner: something that looks like a fried savory croquette arrives on a saucer and turns out to be praline ice cream in macaroon crumbs, with a liqueur-soaked sponge finger hidden dead center. The champagne and maraschino in the fruit place it firmly in the Gilded Age dining room.