No. 880

Crab, Crawfish, Lobster or Shrimp Croquettes, Victoria

Croquettes de Crabes d'Ecrevisses, de Homard ou Crevettes a la Victoria

These croquettes are made with any of the above crustaceans. Cut a pound of any of these meats into dice shapes, and have also one-quarter of a pound of truffles cut the same size as the meat. Put a quart of veloute (No. 415), into a sautoire, season with salt, white, and red pepper, and add half a pint of celery puree (No. 711), let reduce and moisten with cream; and incorporate into it two ounces of lobster butter (No. 580) for each pound; then add the meat let this preparation get quite cold, then divide it into balls an inch and a half in diameter, forming these into cork shaped croquettes, two inches in length, roll them in beaten egg and then in bread-crumbs, and fry a fine color; dress on folded napkins, arranging a bunch of fried parsley on top.

← No. 879 Crab Croquettes, Parmentier Hot Side Dishes No. 881 Duckling Croquettes a la Muser →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot, a velouté and a compound butter already standing by, and he assumes you know that a croquette lives or dies by how stiff its binding is. Read the cross-referenced numbers as shorthand for preparations you will need to make first.

The hinge: reduce the panada hard, then chill it solidThe hinge: reduce the binding hard, then chill it solid -- A quart of velouté plus half a pint of celery purée to a pound of meat sounds like soup, and it is until it is reduced. Cook it down until a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track and the mass pulls away from the pan, then spread it on a tray and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Anything softer than cold, sliceable paste will burst in the fryer.
SautoireA straight-sided shallow pan. Any wide saucepan with a heavy base works; the width is what lets the sauce reduce quickly.
Velouté (No. 415)Velouté (No. 415) -- A white roux sauce moistened with veal or chicken stock rather than milk. For a shellfish croquette a strong fish or shellfish stock is more to the point, and about 2 cups of a very thick version can stand in for the quart once it has been reduced.
Celery purée (No. 711)Celery purée (No. 711) -- Cooked celery, possibly celery root, passed through a sieve. Half a pint is one cup; braise the celery in butter and a little stock, then blend and press through a fine strainer so no strings remain.
Lobster butter (No. 580)Shells and coral pounded with butter, melted, strained and chilled. Two ounces is four tablespoons. If you have no shells, a spoonful of good tomato paste plus butter gives colour and depth, though not the same perfume.
TrufflesA quarter pound of fresh truffle is out of reach for most cooks. A tablespoon of chopped preserved truffle, or an equal dice of sautéed cremini finished with a few drops of truffle oil off the heat, keeps the intent.
FryingDeep fat at 350-360F. The interior is already cooked, so you are only setting the crust and heating through: three to four minutes, in batches, so the oil does not drop. A second pass through egg and crumbs makes them far less likely to leak.
Fried parsleyFlat-leaf sprigs, thoroughly dry, dropped into the same fat for about fifteen seconds until they stop sputtering and turn dark green. Wet parsley will spit violently.
YieldDepends on how far the sauce is reduced; expect appreciably more than a dozen croquettes of the stated size from a pound of shellfish and its binding.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in order, which is why so many entries are little more than a list of components keyed to numbered base preparations elsewhere in the book. Croquettes were a professional kitchen's answer to a standing problem: cooked meat or shellfish, bound in a stiff reduced sauce, chilled, breaded and fried gives a dish that can be shaped hours ahead and finished to order. Dishes tagged à la Victoria are usually taken to honour the British queen, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented, and there is no single fixed formula behind the name. The presentation on a folded napkin with a bouquet of fried parsley was common service for fried dishes at this level, the linen absorbing fat and the parsley supplying the green that a plate of golden cylinders otherwise lacks.