No. 51

To Prepare Croutons for Soups, Roasts, Vegetables, Eggs, Etc. (pour Preparer les Croutons Pour les Soupes, Rotis, Legumes

Œufs, etc.

Cut the croutons from the crumb of a stale loaf of bread; for entrees cut them half heart-shaped, three inches long by two and a half wide, and a quarter of an inch thick (see Fig. 40.); fry them in butter, and as soon as one side is browned, turn them over, and repeat until they have attained a fine color on both sides.

For Vegetables, Scrambled Eggs, Spinach, Chiccory, etc.—Cut them triangle shaped, one and a quarter inches on the sides, by one quarter of an inch thick; fry them in butter, browning them nicely on both sides.

For Soups.—Serve croutons three-sixteenths to four-sixteenths square or round shaped, three quarters of an inch in diameter, by one-eighth in thickness; either of these must be fried a fine color in butter, but do not allow them to get too dry. In order to obtain fine croutons, they must be fried in clarified butter, lard or oil, and in a sautoir, but not in the frying fat.

For Roast Game, Pheasants, Partridges, Grouse and Quail, have oblong shaped croutons; trim the edges and then cut off a quarter of an inch of the four corners; pass the knife all around the croutons a quarter of an inch from the edge, fry and cut away the centers, scoop out the crumb from this space, and lay them under the game; reed-birds or larks must be laid on oblong croutons sufficiently long to hold two or more birds, but do not scoop these out.

For Snipe, Woodcock or Plovers, have wider, oblong crusts (Fig. 41); dig out the crumb in the center to hold the bird and scoop out smaller hollows on each side, which should be garnished with a forcemeat, made of chopped up chicken livers and shallots, fried in scraped lard; mix some fine herbs with the livers. Epicures sometimes have the chopped intestines added to the forcemeat.

← No. 50 Whipped Cream or Chantilly Cream Elementary Methods No. 52 To Prepare Hollow Crusts →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer treats croutons as a component with its own specification sheet: shape and thickness are dictated by what the crouton has to hold up under. The measurements are the point of the entry, and most of them still work.

The bread"Crumb of a stale loaf" means the interior of a firm, close-grained white loaf a day or two old — a pain de mie or a good bakery Vienna loaf, crusts cut away. Airy modern sandwich bread collapses in butter and will not hold a hollowed center.
The odd fractions"Three-sixteenths to four-sixteenths square" is simply a dice of 3/16 to 1/4 inch. The text then gives "three quarters of an inch in diameter, by one-eighth in thickness", which most likely refers to the round soup croutons rather than the dice, though the sentence is ambiguous as printed.
Sautoir, not fryerA sautoir is a shallow straight-sided sauté pan. "Not in the frying fat" is most easily read as a warning off the deep-frying fat, which would already be carrying the flavour of whatever else had been cooked in it.
Why clarified butterWhole butter's milk solids scorch before the bread colors. Clarified butter, lard or oil takes the medium heat needed to brown both faces in a minute or two a side without blackening.
"Do not allow them to get too dry"This is the hinge for soup croutons. Fried to the point of biscuit-dryness they turn to grit in hot broth; pulled while the interior is still slightly tender, they soften without dissolving.
Croûtes for gameThe scored-and-hollowed oblong is a container, not a garnish: it sits under the roast bird and absorbs the juices, and was eaten with it. Fry before scooping, as directed, or the walls tear.
Scraped lardProbably fresh pork fat scraped to a paste with a knife blade rather than rendered. Plain rendered lard or butter does the same job for the liver forcemeat.
The small birdsReed-birds (bobolinks), larks, snipe and plovers were market game in 1894. Bobolinks, larks and plovers are now protected under migratory bird law; Wilson's snipe and American woodcock may still be hunted in season, but wild-taken birds of any of these kinds cannot lawfully be bought or sold in the United States. For a bought bird, use quail, pheasant, partridge or squab.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how completely his cooking sat inside the French professional system: the crouton is not an afterthought but a graded set of components, each with its own dimensions, filed among the elementary methods a cook was expected to have mastered before touching an entree. The word is a diminutive of croûte, crust, and the larger hollowed croûtes for game echo an older European practice in which a slab of bread served as the plate and absorbed the roasting juices — a resemblance to the bread trencher of the medieval hall, though not a documented line of descent. The forcemeat of chicken livers and shallots, and the note that "epicures sometimes have the chopped intestines added," reflect the long-standing rule for woodcock and snipe, birds traditionally roasted undrawn so that the trail could be spread on the crouton beneath them; that a New York restaurant could offer it at all is a reminder that wild songbirds and shorebirds were ordinary market goods before the game laws of the following decades closed the trade.