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Potato Batonnets
Broil six peeled, raw potatoes in two quarts boiling water with a teaspoon salt for thirty-five minutes. Drain on sieve, then press them through potato masher into a sautoire, add a level teaspoon salt, tablespoon butter, half teaspoon chopped parsley, ounce grated Parmesan cheese, one whole and the yolks of two eggs. Sharply stir with spatula while heating for five minutes, remove to a table and let slightly cool off. Divide preparation into twenty-four equal balls, roll on a lightly floured table to small stick-like forms two inches long, dip in beaten egg, lightly roll in bread crumbs, place in frying basket and fry in boiling fat for five minutes. Lift up, drain well, sprinkle a little salt over, dress them on nicely arranged hot dish and serve.
A potato croquette mixture shaped into little sticks and deep-fried. The original text is written in professional kitchen shorthand, and two of its words mean something other than what they appear to.
- "Broil" means boil"Broil" here means boil -- the recipe itself has you cook the potatoes in two quarts of boiling water with salt, so you are simmering them, not putting them under a grill. Thirty-five minutes suits whole medium potatoes, less if you halve them.
- Dry the potatoesThe hinge of the dish. After draining, return the riced potato to the pan over low heat and stir until it stops steaming, then add the fat, cheese and eggs. Wet potato gives a slack paste that will not hold a stick shape and can burst in the fryer.
- Sautoire and potato masherA sautoire is a shallow straight-sided saute pan. The "potato masher" pressed through is what we would call a ricer or a food mill; a modern hand masher leaves lumps that spoil the shaping.
- Egg quantitiesOne whole egg plus two yolks binds the mixture; the additional beaten egg is only for coating. Add the eggs off the direct heat or work quickly, since the five minutes of sharp stirring is meant to set them without scrambling.
- Frying temperature"Boiling fat" means deep fat at roughly 360-375F. Fat that is genuinely boiling has broken down.
- Frying timeFive minutes is too long at that heat for a two-inch stick of cooked potato. Fry two to three minutes, until the crumb coating is deep gold, and work in batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- CheeseAn ounce of Parmesan is about a quarter cup grated. Buy it in the piece and grate it; pre-grated cheese carries anti-caking starch that dulls the flavour and stiffens the paste.
- YieldTwenty-four sticks, which serves four to six as a vegetable garnish alongside a roast or a grill. They collapse as they cool, so fry them last and send them out at once.
Batonnet is simply French for "little stick," a shape name that survives in professional kitchens today as a standard cut for fries and for vegetable batons. The preparation itself belongs to the large family of nineteenth-century French potato croquettes, in which riced potato is enriched with butter, egg and sometimes cheese, then breaded and deep-fried; the shape is often the only real variable, and period garnish names do distinguish forms such as balls, corks and sticks. The International Cook Book is generally attributed to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and the terse imperative style here -- exact counts, exact minutes, "dress them on nicely arranged hot dish" -- reads as restaurant writing carried over to the domestic page.