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M. a. T (Same mixture as given)
The same mixture as given for stuffed lobster, without the cream; made into pointed balls, dipped in egg, and cream; made into pointed balls, dipped in egg, and then rolled in cracker and fried in very hot lard; served dry and garnished with parsley.
This is a croquette recipe written as a footnote to another one, and the text has a typesetter's stutter in it — the phrase "dipped in egg, and cream; made into pointed balls" is set twice. Read it as a single sequence: shape, egg, crumbs, fry.
- It depends on another recipeThe base is the stuffed lobster mixture given elsewhere in the book, with the cream left out. The omission presumably gives a stiffer, drier mixture that holds its shape in hot fat instead of bursting.
- "Cracker" means cracker crumbsNineteenth-century American kitchens used pounded soda or Boston crackers where a modern cook reaches for dry breadcrumbs. Crushed unsalted saltines are the closest match and brown at about the same rate; panko fries lighter but is not what the book means.
- Pointed ballsThe classic croquette shape of the period was a cone or a tapered oval, formed between the palms. Chill the shaped pieces for half an hour before breading — cold croquettes hold together and absorb less fat.
- "Very hot lard" is 375F"Very hot lard" -- The book gives no temperature; around 375F is the usual modern equivalent. Period cooks judged the fat by eye, often by how quickly a cube of bread browned. At about 375F the crumb coat colours in two to three minutes, which is all the time an already-cooked lobster mixture needs; much below 350F the croquettes soak and collapse.
- Fat and depthLard gives the flavour the book expects; a neutral oil with a high smoke point behaves the same. Fry three or four at a time so the temperature does not drop, and drain on paper rather than a cloth.
- "Served dry"This most likely means without sauce, in contrast to the creamed stuffed lobster it derives from. The parsley garnish could be fried or fresh; fried parsley sprigs take about fifteen seconds in the same fat.
- YieldThe original gives none. A pound of picked lobster meat makes roughly twelve croquettes of the usual size — a first course for six, or lunch for four.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in the 1870s from recipes contributed by named housewives and sold for charity, which is why entries like this one carry only a set of initials and lean on a neighbouring recipe rather than repeating themselves. The croquette itself came into American cookbooks from the French professional kitchen, where croquette derives from croquer, to crunch, and it earned its place in the domestic repertoire as a way of turning yesterday's cooked meat or fish into something that looked like a course. Lobster was a plausible everyday choice in that decade in a way it is not now: canned lobster from the Maritimes and New England moved inland by rail cheaply enough that Midwestern cookbooks treated it as a pantry item, and it appears throughout this book in salads and cutlets. The instruction to leave out the cream reads as a precaution against a croquette bursting in the fat.