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Potato Croquettes with Parmesan Cheese
Prepare a brioche potato puree adding to the puree a tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese, thoroughly stir and divide preparation in twelve even parts. Roll them out on a lightly floured table to cork-like shape, dip in beaten egg, then lightly roll in grated Parmesan cheese, arrange in frying basket and fry in boiling fat six minutes. Lift up, dress on a dish with a folded napkin, decorate them with a little parsley greens and serve.
A short cross-referenced recipe of the kind that assumes you have already made the base preparation elsewhere in the book. Two things need attention: what the "brioche potato puree" is, and the fact that Parmesan scorches long before six minutes are up.
- The base puree"Brioche potato puree" refers to a base preparation given elsewhere in the book; from the way it is used here it must be a stiff, enriched mash of the pommes duchesse type (dry riced potato beaten with butter and egg yolk) rather than a loose mash, since the mixture has to be firm enough to roll without sticking or slumping in the fryer.
- Chill before fryingThis is the hinge. The shaped croquettes want at least half an hour cold before they are egged and coated, and the coating must be unbroken. A warm or cracked croquette bursts and empties into the fat.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough to bubble vigorously around the food, in modern terms somewhere around 350-375F. Much cooler and the cheese crust absorbs grease; much hotter and the Parmesan blackens.
- Six minutes is too longA cheese coating on already-cooked potato needs only until it is deep gold, about two to three minutes. Six minutes at frying temperature will take the Parmesan past brown into bitter.
- The Parmesan crustGrated cheese alone gives a fragile, patchy coat, so grate it dry and fine and press it on well. Pre-grated cheese with anti-caking starch behaves differently and browns unevenly.
- "Cork-like shape"A short cylinder about the size and proportions of a wine cork. The recipe gives no quantity for the puree, so the finished size depends on how much base preparation you started with.
- Napkin serviceFried dishes of this period were commonly dressed on a folded napkin, which both presents the food and takes up some fat. A rack or paper does the draining job; drain the croquettes standing up so the ends do not sit in oil.
- YieldTwelve croquettes serves four as a garnish or side, two if it is the centre of a light supper.
Potato croquettes belong to the nineteenth-century French repertoire built on pommes duchesse — dry potato bound with butter and egg yolk, then piped, shaped or fried — and they passed into American hotel and restaurant cooking. The brief, cross-referenced style here, written for a cook who already knows the base preparations and needs only the variation, is typical of the professional-kitchen compilations of that era; Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, compiled recipes of exactly this sort. The Parmesan does double duty, seasoning the puree and replacing the usual breadcrumb coat, giving an Italian gloss on a French method. Service on a folded napkin with a tuft of parsley was a common presentation for deep-fried dishes of the period.