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February 16
Menu: Consomme Colbert; Braised Mutton Cutlets with Kidneys; Stuffed Potatoes *Salsify Fritters; Spinach Salad; Cheese Balls; Meringues, a la Chantilly; Coffee Salsify Fritters-3 heads salsify, lemon juice, salt, 2 tablespoons milk, 1 tablespoon melted Crisco, fried parsley, 4 tablespoons flour, and 2 eggs. Wash, scrape, and soak the salsify in cold water seasoned with salt and lemon juice to taste. Boil in salted, acidulated water until tender. Take it up when done, drain, and cut the salsify into pieces all the same size. Sieve the flour into a basin, work in the yolks of the eggs, the milk, and the melted Crisco. Beat to a smooth batter, season with salt and pepper to taste. When ready to fry, beat up the whites of eggs very stiffly and stir them lightly into batter. Drop the salsify into the batter, then into hot Crisco and fry to a golden brown color. Take up, drain, and serve garnished with fried parsley.
A straightforward fritter, but the original assumes you know what salsify looks like and how hot the fat should be. Two details carry the dish: keeping the cut roots in acidulated water, and folding the whites in only at the last moment.
- "3 heads salsify"Salsify is sold as long tapering roots, not heads; the term here means three whole roots. Figure roughly 3/4 to 1 lb untrimmed, which serves two to three as a side.
- Crisco means shorteningThe book is a Crisco advertisement, so every fat call is for hydrogenated vegetable shortening. Any neutral frying fat or oil works in the pan, and melted butter or oil works in the batter.
- Acidulated water is not optionalScraped salsify browns quickly, like an artichoke bottom. Drop the pieces into water with lemon juice as you work, and boil in the same acidulated salted water, or the fritters turn a dull grey.
- Boiling timeThe recipe says only "until tender." Whole roots take 20 to 30 minutes depending on thickness; test with a knife tip, since overcooked salsify collapses into the batter.
- Fat temperatureThe book gives no temperature, only "hot Crisco." By modern deep-frying practice that is around 365 to 375F, deep enough to float the fritters. Cooler and the batter drinks fat; hotter and the outside colors before the coating sets.
- Handling the batterFold the stiff whites in gently and fry immediately. The batter deflates within a few minutes, and a rested batter gives heavy, bready fritters.
- Fried parsleyDry parsley sprigs dropped into the same fat for 10 to 15 seconds, until they stop sputtering and go crisp and dark green. Wet parsley will spit violently, so blot it thoroughly first.
- Seasoning notePepper appears in the instructions but not the ingredient list. Season the batter to taste and salt the fritters again as they drain.
- If you cannot find salsifyParsnip cut to the same size behaves similarly in a fritter batter, though it is sweeter and lacks the faintly oyster-like flavor behind salsify's common name, oyster plant.
Salsify was a standard winter root in nineteenth-century American kitchen gardens, often sold and cooked under the name oyster plant for the shellfish note some cooks found in it, and it turns up mock-oyster fashion in scallops, soups and fritters. Its appearance here on February 17 reflects the seasonal logic of The Story of Crisco's "Calendar of Dinners," which leaned on storage roots in late winter before spring produce arrived. The book itself was published by Procter & Gamble in the 1910s to teach cooks what to do with hydrogenated vegetable shortening, a product then only a few years old, and deep-fried dishes like this one made the case most directly: Crisco was promoted as odorless and reusable, unlike lard or drippings, so the same fat could carry a vegetable fritter and its parsley garnish without tasting of the last thing fried in it.