No. 670

Fritadelles of Veal Garnishing

Garniture de Fritadelles de Veau

Dip a pound and a half of bread-crumbs in some milk, and when well soaked, extract all the liquid; have a pound of pared and well chopped roast veal, also two ounces of finely chopped beef marrow. Put two ounces of chopped up onions in a saucepan to fry in two ounces of butter, but do not let it attain a color, then add the veal, the pressed bread-crumbs and the beef marrow, salt, pepper and nutmeg, also a finely chopped lemon peel; reduce and beat in two eggs. After the preparation has cooled off, divide it into small parts so as to be able to make flat croquettes, dip them in egg, then in bread-crumbs and fry to a good color.

← No. 669 French Garnishing Garnishings No. 671 Fritadelles of Roast Beef Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

A panade-bound croquette of leftover roast veal, meant as a garnish around a larger platter rather than a dish on its own. Two details decide whether it works: the bread must be squeezed genuinely dry, and the mixture must be dried further over heat before the eggs go in.

Two different "bread-crumbs"The pound and a half soaked in milk is soft crumb from a stale loaf, crusts removed — a panade. The crumbs used for the final coating are dry, fine ones. Using dry crumbs for the soaking stage gives a pasty, heavy mixture.
Squeeze hard"Extract all the liquid" is not a formality. Press the soaked crumb in a towel until it stops weeping; any milk left behind will make the croquettes slump and burst in the fat.
"Reduce"After combining, keep the pan on moderate heat and stir until the mass pulls cleanly from the sides and no moisture steams off. Only then take it off and beat in the eggs, or they will scramble.
Beef marrowTwo ounces is about the yield of a marrow bone or two, depending on size, and a butcher will usually saw them for you. Scoop it cold, chop it fine, and keep it cold until it goes in — softened marrow smears rather than chops. Beef suet is the usual substitute, though it is firmer and less delicate.
Lemon peelZest only, no white pith, chopped very fine. In modern terms the zest of one lemon is about right for this quantity.
Cooling is structuralThe chilled mixture is what lets you shape flat cakes and bread them. Spread it on a tray and refrigerate at least an hour; overnight is better than an hour.
FryingThe recipe says only 'fry to a good color' and gives no temperature or depth of fat; for breaded croquettes, fat around 350–360°F works. Hotter and the crumb coat colors before the interior heats through; the filling is already cooked, so you are only browning and warming, two to three minutes.
YieldAbout two and a half pounds of mixture — enough for a good many small flat croquettes, which is a garnish for a large platter rather than a course. Halve everything for household quantities.

A Little History

Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) devotes a whole chapter to garnishings, the standing repertoire of shaped, fried and molded items a Delmonico's cook drew on to build a platter, and this is one of a small run of them — No. 671 is the same idea made with roast beef. The name belongs to the family of European words for a fried patty of minced meat — French fricadelle, German Frikadelle — whose direction of borrowing is disputed; Ranhofer's fritadelle is his own spelling. What the recipe really documents is the economics of a nineteenth-century restaurant kitchen: a pound of yesterday's roast veal, stretched with milk-soaked bread and enriched with marrow, comes back to the dining room as an ornament around someone else's roast. Marrow was a common enrichment in this period, and its near-disappearance from home cooking is a fair measure of how much the butcher's counter has narrowed since.