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Fish Croquettes, Cream Sauce
Procure one and a half pounds fresh halibut, cod or any kind of fresh fish. Cut it into very small square pieces and plunge into a pint boiling water with half teaspoon salt and boil for a minute. Drain and keep the fish on a plate and the liquor separate.
Finely chop a medium, white onion, place in a small saucepan with one and a half tablespoons melted butter and slowly cook for eight minutes, stirring well once in a while; then add three tablespoons flour, briskly stir while heating for one minute; pour in half pint hot milk and one gill fish liquor, mix thoroughly and lot boil for five minutes. Season with a teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper, one saltspoon ground nutmeg, one teaspoon ground English mustard and one teaspoon Worcestershire sauce; thoroughly mix with a wooden spoon and let cook for two minutes; add two egg yolks and continually mix while cooking for five minutes. Add the fish, lightly mix and cook for three minutes. Transfer the preparation into a bowl and let thoroughly cool off. Divide the force meat into six equal parts, dredge a little flour on the corner of the table; roll out the pieces into cork forms, lightly dip in beaten egg, roll in bread crumbs, place in a frying basket and fry in boiling fat for eight minutes. Thoroughly drain, pour a cream sauce on a hot dish, arrange the croquettes over the same and serve.
N. B. If any left-over fish is on hand employ it in place of the fresh fish.
A stiff, panade-bound fish mixture shaped and deep-fried. The recipe is sound; the frying time and a couple of the measurements are where it needs translating.
- Saltspoon and gillA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of cayenne is a half teaspoon — assertive but not unreasonable in a mixture this size. A gill is half a cup, here of the reserved fish liquor.
- Chill is the hingeThe mixture must be cold and firm all the way through before shaping, ideally several hours or overnight in the refrigerator. Warm or soft croquettes split in the fat and empty themselves into the fryer.
- Frying temperature and time"Boiling fat" means 350-375F. Eight minutes at that heat will darken the crumbs well past golden; the filling is already cooked, so three to four minutes, until deep gold and hot at the centre, is enough.
- The first boil is deliberateOne minute in salted water only firms the fish and yields the liquor for the sauce. It will finish in the hot base and again in the fryer, so do not extend it.
- Egg yolksFive minutes of continuous stirring after the yolks go in should be over gentle heat. If the base is at a rolling boil the yolks will scramble and the texture turns grainy.
- "Cork forms"Short cylinders about the size of a wine cork, roughly two inches long — six from this quantity makes fairly large croquettes. Chill again after breading if the coating feels soft.
- English mustardGround English mustard is the dry yellow powder, hotter and sharper than prepared mustard. A teaspoon of the powder is not interchangeable with a teaspoon from a jar.
- The cream sauceNone is given here. A plain béchamel — flour cooked briefly, milk whisked in, seasoned with salt and nutmeg — is a reasonable reading of what is meant. The recipe has it poured on the hot dish beneath the croquettes rather than over them, which keeps the crust crisp.
- YieldSix croquettes, enough for three as a main course or six as a first course.
The International Cook Book came out of the professional American hotel and restaurant kitchen of the early twentieth century, where the croquette was one of the great workhorses: a way of turning cooked fish, poultry or game into something that arrived at the table looking composed and deliberate. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the form was well established in English-language cookery by the later nineteenth century. The note at the end — use up any leftover fish — is the practical heart of the dish, and versions of it are common in household manuals of the era. The seasoning with cayenne, nutmeg, English mustard and Worcestershire is in keeping with the period's fairly assertive treatment of white fish.