No. 869

Cromesquis of Crabs, Shrimps, Crawfish or Lobster a la Rumpford

Cromesquis de Crabes, de Crevettes, d'Ecrevisses ou de Homard a la Rumpford

For the cromesquis use either crabs, shrimps, crawfish or lobsters; cut a pound of the one desired into three-sixteenth inch squares, also half a pound of mushrooms the same, and add them to a quart of veloute sauce (No. 415); let it boil, season and reduce, then thicken with six egg-yolks, one gill of cream and two ounces of lobster butter (No. 580), pour out the preparation and set it aside to get cold. Dampen two napkins, press out every particle of water, and place between them some white wafers to soften. Roll the cold preparation into balls, flatten them down and wrap them in the white wafers or else the preparation can be merely laid between the two wafers, pressed down well and cut into lozenges. Dip them in frying paste (No. 2), plunge them into hot fat, and fry them a fine color, drain, wipe off and dress them on folded napkins, with fried parsley on top.

← No. 868 Cromesquis of Chicken, Capon, Fat Pullet or Hot Side Dishes No. 870 Cromesquis of Fillets of Striped Bass or Oth →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's croquette in disguise: a stiff shellfish salpicon, chilled, wrapped in edible wafer, battered and fried. Everything depends on the filling being cold and solid before it goes near the fat.

Chill it hardRanhofer says only to pour out the preparation and set it aside to get cold; in practice spreading it shallow and giving it several hours in the refrigerator, until it cuts cleanly, is what makes it workable. A soft centre will burst the wafer and the batter in the fryer.
A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. A quart of veloute is four cups, which with a pound of shellfish and half a pound of mushrooms gives a generous quantity of filling.
Egg yolks off the boilReduce and season the veloute first, then draw the pan from the heat before whisking in the six yolks slaked with the cream. Returning it to a boil will scramble them and the filling will go grainy.
Lobster butterRanhofer's No. 580 is a compound butter made from lobster shells and coral worked with butter, then strained; the two ounces here is for colour and depth, and a batch made from the shells of the lobster you have just picked will serve.
White wafersThese are pain a chanter or azyme, the thin unleavened communion-style wafer sold in sheets. Damp napkins soften them enough to fold without cracking. Vietnamese rice paper, briefly moistened, does the same job and is easier to find.
Frying pasteNo. 2 is Ranhofer's light frying batter rather than a heavy fritter batter. Mix it just before frying.
Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "hot fat." Aim for a moderately hot fat: hotter and the wafer scorches before the centre warms through, cooler and the batter soaks. Fry until the "fine color" wanted.
Fried parsleyDry curly parsley sprigs thoroughly, then drop into the same fat for a few seconds until the sizzling stops. Wet parsley spits violently.

A Little History

Cromesqui is generally traced to the Polish kromeski, itself often said to derive from kromka, a slice, and the dish arrived in Parisian kitchens in the nineteenth century as a Slavic cousin of the croquette: the same bound salpicon, but wrapped rather than crumbed, sometimes in caul fat, sometimes in a pancake, and here in the thin unleavened wafer used for communion bread and pharmacists' cachets. The "a la Rumpford" attribution points to Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, the Massachusetts-born physicist ennobled in Bavaria who spent his later career on the science of heat, nutrition and cookery; his name was attached to a good many nineteenth-century preparations, and the connection is usually more honorific than documented. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the Delmonico's kitchens for over thirty years before publishing The Epicurean in 1894, gives cromesquis of chicken, of bass and of shellfish in a run of consecutive numbers, which tells you how the restaurant worked: one technique, one binding sauce, and whatever the market sent up that morning.