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Croquettes, Polonaise
Place in a bowl two ounces granulated sugar with the whites of three eggs; briskly beat up with a wooden spoon for five minutes, then add one and a half ounces sifted flour, one and a half ounces dried chopped almonds, half teaspoon vanilla essence; mix well for two minutes. Lightly butter and flour a pastry pan; spread two tablespoons powdered sugar on a corner of the table, take up a tablespoon of the preparation and gently roll in the sugar to a croquette form; place it in the pastry pan and proceed to prepare the others in the same manner. When all are in the pan set it in the oven to bake for ten minutes, or until a nice golden colour. Remove and serve.
A soft almond-and-egg-white paste rolled in sugar and baked briefly — closer to an amaretti-type cookie than to a savoury croquette. The original gives no oven temperature and no yield, so both need supplying.
- Weights in cupsTwo ounces granulated sugar is a scant 1/3 cup; 1 1/2 ounces sifted flour is about 1/3 cup; 1 1/2 ounces chopped almonds is roughly 1/3 cup. Weighing is better here, since the paste's stiffness depends on the flour-to-white ratio.
- OvenUnstated in the original. Bake at 350F for the ten minutes given; hotter than that and the sugar coating colours before the centres set.
- The hinge is consistencyBeaten with a wooden spoon rather than whipped to peaks, the whites and sugar make a thick paste, not a meringue. If it is too slack to roll into a cylinder, refrigerate it 20-30 minutes rather than adding more flour.
- "Dried chopped almonds"Most likely blanched almonds dried out so they chop dry instead of turning oily and pasty, though the original does not say so. Blanched slivered almonds, chopped fine and lightly toasted, do the job.
- "Powdered sugar"In this period the term often meant finely ground granulated sugar rather than the cornstarch-containing confectioners' sugar sold today, though usage varied from book to book. Superfine or caster sugar gives the crisp coating the recipe seems to intend; confectioners' sugar is more likely to dissolve into the wet paste.
- "Pastry pan"A flat baking sheet. Buttering and flouring works, but parchment is more reliable — these stick as the sugar caramelises at the base.
- Vanilla essenceHalf a teaspoon of ordinary vanilla extract. Almond extract is a period-appropriate substitution if you want the almond flavour more forward.
- Yield and servingAbout 10 to 12 pieces from this quantity. They are meant to be eaten the day they are baked, while the outside is still crisp; stored airtight they soften within hours.
This comes from Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906), by a chef long associated with Delmonico's in New York, a book that applies national labels loosely to French restaurant technique. "Polonaise" — Polish-style — is one of those labels: in savoury cookery à la polonaise generally means a topping of buttered crumbs, chopped egg and parsley, while on the pastry side the name was attached to a whole family of sweets, often ones involving almonds or meringue, without much consistency from one book to the next. Calling an almond-paste cookie a "croquette" is likewise professional shorthand of the period, a loose extension of a word that comes from croquer, to crunch, and whose older sense is something breaded and fried. The technique itself — egg whites, sugar, ground or chopped almonds, minimal flour — is the shared ancestor of amaretti, macaroons and a good many nineteenth-century petits fours, and it has the incidental virtue of using up whites left over from sauces and custards.