No. 884

Frog or Oyster Croquettes

Croquettes de Grenouilles ou d'Huitres

Saute some frogs' legs with butter in a pan over a brisk fire; season, take off all the meat from the bones to obtain one pound; cut in small squares, have half a pound of cooked and well-dried mushrooms, cut them into quarter inch squares, and mix them with a quart of well seasoned and reduced bechamel and cream sauce (No. 411); incorporate two ounces of butter, and toss the salpicon in the sautoire. Let the preparation get thoroughly cold, and then form it into balls an inch and a half in diameter; flatten them down to half an inch in thickness, dip them in eggs and bread-crumbs, and fry them a fine golden color, then drain and serve on folded napkins with fried parsley.

Oyster Croquettes.—Instead of frogs blanched oysters may be substituted after removing the hard parts, and dividing them into squares; saute them, drain off the butter and finish the same as the frogs.

← No. 883 Fish Croquettes Hot Side Dishes No. 885 Game, Chicken or Fat Liver Croquettes, Dauph →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's croquette formula is a salpicon bound in a very stiff sauce, chilled hard, then breaded and fried. Everything hinges on the sauce being reduced far past pouring consistency.

The binding sauce is the whole dishA quart of bechamel-and-cream binding 1 1/2 lb of solids only works if the sauce is reduced far past pouring consistency, stiff enough to mound on the spoon and pull away from the pan. If it is merely thick, the chilled mixture will not hold a shape and the croquettes may burst in the fat. Ranhofer's quart is already a reduced sauce, so reduce before measuring rather than cutting the quantity.
Chill means fully coldSpread the mixture in a shallow buttered pan, press plastic wrap on the surface and refrigerate at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Warm or barely-cool salpicon cannot be rolled and will not survive breading.
How many frogs' legsPicking a pound of meat takes appreciably more than a pound of legs; buy generously and weigh the picked meat rather than trusting a fixed ratio. Frozen legs turn up in Asian markets; thaw and pat very dry before sauteing or they will steam rather than brown.
SautoireA shallow straight-sided saute pan. The recipe has the salpicon tossed in it with the added butter over heat; tossing also helps drive off surplus moisture, and water left in the mushrooms will loosen the mixture.
Mushrooms"Cooked and well-dried" is literal: saut the mushrooms until they stop weeping and the pan is dry, then cool before dicing. Undercooked mushrooms release liquid into the sauce overnight.
Oysters: seconds, not minutes"Blanched" here means dipped in their own liquor just until the edges ruffle, about 30 seconds. The "hard parts" are the tough adductor muscle and any gritty mantle edge. A further saut after blanching is enough; longer and they turn to rubber inside the crust.
Frying360 375F, in enough fat to float the croquettes, four or five at a time so the temperature holds. Two to three minutes gives the "fine golden color"; the inside is already cooked and only needs heating through.
Fried parsleyFlat-leaf sprigs must be bone dry before they go into the fat, and they cook in 10 to 15 seconds. Wet parsley spits violently.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked during his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the logic of the book plainly: one master preparation, numbered and cross-referenced to a sauce elsewhere in the volume, with substitutions listed rather than rewritten. Frogs' legs were a genuine luxury on American restaurant menus of the period, prized in the French manner; oysters, by contrast, were cheap and everywhere, which is why they stand as the alternate. A salpicon diced solids bound in a reduced sauce underlies the whole family of croquettes and their kin, and the technique is older than the term: bind, chill until firm, coat, fry. The service "on folded napkins with fried parsley" was standard nineteenth-century restaurant presentation, the linen there to absorb frying fat at the table.