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December 17
Menu: Farina Soup; Salmon Loaf; Glazed Potatoes; Stewed Carrots; Cabbage Salad * Pear Croquettes; Coffee Pear Croquettes-6 halves canned pears, 1/2 cup rice, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 cups milk, 1 lemon, 1 egg, lady fingers and angelica. Put milk and sugar in saucepan, bring to boil, and then add rice and grated rind of 1 lemon. Stir this over fire until rice is tender and milk absorbed, then turn it on to plate, and put aside to cool. Stand pears on hair sieve until syrup has drained away, then stuff hollow side with boiled rice, shaping it to a dome, so that they look like whole pears. Beat egg on plate, crush lady fingers, and rub them through wire sieve. Dip stuffed pears in egg, and toss in lady finger crumbs. Have ready pan of hot Crisco, fry croquettes in it until a golden brown. Take them up, and drain on paper. Insert small piece of angelica in end of each to represent pear-stalk. Dish up and serve hot.
A dessert croquette: canned pear halves filled with lemon rice pudding, breaded in sponge-finger crumbs and fried. The whole thing succeeds or fails on how dry and cold the components are before they meet the fat.
- Dry the pears, then chillDraining on a sieve is not optional flourish — surface syrup will make the egg wash slide and the crumbs fall off in the fat. Blot the halves dry, fill them, then refrigerate the assembled pears at least 30 minutes so the rice sets firm.
- A hair sieveA fine sieve of woven horsehair, the standard fine strainer of the period. Any fine-mesh sieve or a rack set over a plate does the same job.
- The riceHalf a cup of raw rice to 2 cups milk gives a thick, sticky pudding — that stickiness is the glue holding the dome together. Stir often over low heat; it will take roughly 25-35 minutes and should be stiff enough to mound on a spoon, not pourable.
- Lady fingers as breadingSponge fingers are sweet and will colour far faster than dry breadcrumbs. Dry the crushed crumbs out in a low oven first if they are soft, and expect browning in about a minute.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'hot Crisco'; for a sugary crumb something in the region of 365F is a reasonable modern reading. Much hotter and the crumb burns before the filling warms; cooler and it drinks fat. Fry two or three at a time so the temperature holds.
- AngelicaCandied stems of Angelica archangelica, sold in green strips and once a standard confectioner's garnish. It is now hard to find outside specialist suppliers; a strip of candied citron peel or a short cinnamon stick reads as a stalk just as well.
- CriscoThe book is a promotional volume for the shortening, hence its appearance throughout. Any neutral frying fat or oil works in its place.
- YieldSix croquettes, so three or four servings as written; the rice quantity looks generous for six halves and may well stretch further. Serve hot, as directed — they slump as they cool.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was published by Procter & Gamble to teach American cooks what to do with a wholly new product: a hydrogenated vegetable shortening introduced in 1911 to stand in for lard and butter. Its "Calendar of Dinners" assigned a full menu to every day of the year, and this pear croquette is the sweet for December 18. The form is thoroughly late-Victorian — a croquette, from the French croquer, to crunch, meaning anything bound, breaded and fried, savoury or sweet — and the trick of rebuilding a canned pear half into what looks like a whole fruit, complete with a candied angelica stalk, belongs to the same decorative tradition that gave us aspic moulds and piped mashed potato borders. Canned pears and boxed lady fingers made it a pantry dish rather than a luxury one, which was exactly the point of the book: elaborate-looking results from ordinary shelf goods, fried in the sponsor's fat.