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Oyster Croquettes
Plunge forty large, fresh-opened oysters (saving their liquor) in a pint boiling water with a half teaspoon salt for five minutes; drain on a colander and cut the oysters into small square pieces. Cut also a small truffle into same size, add to the oysters and keep on a plate. Heat one ounce butter in a saucepan, add six finely chopped shallots, three finely chopped canned mushrooms, and gently cook for three minutes; add one ounce flour, stir while heating for two minutes, pour in liquor of the oysters and one pint broth; add half teaspoon each freshly chopped parsley and chervil, half teaspoon salt, saltspoon cayenne pepper, saltspoon grated nutmeg and teaspoon French mustard; mix well with a wooden spoon while boiling for five minutes, then reduce the sauce on a brisk fire for thirty minutes, occasionally mixing at the bottom to prevent burning. Dilute three egg yolks with a half gill cream and add to the pan. Mix while cooking for five minutes again. Add the oysters and truffles, mix again while cooking for two minutes, remove, place on a large dish and let cool off. Divide the force into twelve even parts, roll out each on a lightly floured table to cork shapes, dip in beaten egg, then lightly roll in bread crumbs. Arrange them in a frying basket, plunge in boiling fat and fry for five minutes; lift up, thoroughly drain, dredge half teaspoon salt over, dress on a dish with a folded napkin, decorate with a little parsley greens and serve.
A classic Delmonico-style croquette: an oyster-flavored sauce reduced to a paste, bound with egg yolk, chilled, shaped and fried. Everything depends on the binding, not on the frying.
- The hinge: chill the force hardThe reduced, yolk-bound mixture must be spread on a shallow dish and refrigerated until firm to the center, at least three hours and preferably overnight. The original says only "let cool off"; a barely cool mixture will not roll and will burst in the fat.
- Don't cook the oysters five minutesFive minutes in boiling water leaves them rubbery, and they cook again in the sauce and again in the fryer. Poach them 30 to 60 seconds, just until the edges ruffle, then drain and chop. Save every drop of the liquor and the poaching liquid can be reduced into the sauce as well.
- Archaic measuresA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of cream is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is roughly 1/4 teaspoon. One ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons; one ounce of flour is about 1/4 cup.
- French mustardThis means smooth Dijon, not the bright yellow American kind. A teaspoon is enough to sharpen the sauce without reading as mustard.
- Truffle and canned mushroomsThe truffle is a garnish of status rather than necessity; omit it, or use a few drops of truffle oil stirred in off the heat. Canned mushrooms were available to kitchens of the period; three finely chopped fresh cremini, sauteed until their water has gone, do the same job better.
- The reductionThirty minutes on a brisk fire is meant to drive the sauce down to a thick, spoon-standing paste, close to a pastry-cream consistency. Scrape the bottom often. If it is still pourable, it is not reduced enough and no amount of chilling will save it.
- Adding the yolksTemper the yolk and cream mixture with a little of the hot sauce before it goes into the pan, and keep the pan below a simmer for those five minutes. Boiling after the yolks go in will curdle the binding.
- FryingFat at 375F, and two to three minutes is plenty; the filling is already cooked and you are only crisping the crumb. Five minutes at that temperature scorches the coating. Fry four at a time so the fat does not drop in temperature.
- YieldTwelve cork-shaped croquettes, which is a first course for four to six. They are traditionally served with a lemon wedge or a tartar or tomato sauce alongside.
Croquettes were the great thrift-and-elegance dish of the late nineteenth-century restaurant kitchen: a rich sauce reduced to a paste, studded with something expensive, and fried so that the diner met a crisp shell rather than a stew. This one is generally attributed, on the strength of its style, to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and it shows the house manner plainly, with shallots, chervil, truffle and a yolk liaison applied to an ingredient Americans then had in quantity. Oysters were still comparatively cheap and plentiful on the East Coast in this period, so forty large ones for twelve croquettes was an ordinary rather than an extravagant call; the truffle, not the shellfish, was the luxury. The "folded napkin" on the serving dish is a period convention for fried food, meant to absorb fat at the table and signal that the kitchen had done things properly.