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January 12
Menu: Clear Soup; Roast Duck, Plum Jelly; Mashed Turnips *Potato Croquettes; Apple Salad; Hot Cheese Wafers; Grape Fruit Jelly Coffee Potato Croquettes-2 pints mashed potatoes, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons Crisco, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste. Mash potatoes by rubbing them through wire sieve with back of wooden spoon; dissolve Crisco, add it to potatoes with 1 of eggs well beaten and seasonings. Mix and divide into 10 or 12 pieces, form them into neat croquettes, brush over with remaining beaten egg, toss in breadcrumbs, and fry in hot Crisco.
A straightforward potato croquette, printed as part of a day's menu in Procter & Gamble's promotional cookbook. The mixture is stiff enough to shape, and the handling matters more than the seasoning.
- Measure the potatoes by volumeTwo pints of mashed potato is 4 cups, roughly 2 lb of raw potatoes before peeling. Bake or steam rather than boil them if you can; wet potato is the main cause of croquettes that burst in the fat.
- "Dissolve Crisco" means melt itCrisco is solid hydrogenated vegetable shortening; the instruction is to melt the 2 tablespoons and stir them in warm so they disperse. Any neutral solid fat or butter does the same job.
- Frying temperatureThe book gives no number, only "hot Crisco"; for deep frying, around 375F works. Below that the crumb coat absorbs fat; much above it the outside colours before the inside heats through.
- Chill before coatingThe original goes straight from mixing to shaping. Spread the mixture on a tray and refrigerate 30 minutes first, then shape, egg and crumb; cold croquettes hold their form in the fat.
- The egg washOne egg goes into the potato, the second is the glue for the crumbs. Beat the second egg with a teaspoon of water so it brushes on thinly and evenly rather than sitting in gluey patches.
- Red pepperIn American books of this period "red pepper" is cayenne, not paprika or a fresh sweet pepper. A pinch is enough for 4 cups of potato.
- Yield and servingTen to twelve croquettes, enough for four to six as a side. Drain on paper and salt while hot.
- The trailing line"January 13 Oysters on Half Shell" is the start of the next day's menu in the calendar, not part of the croquette recipe.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter & Gamble, who had introduced Crisco two years earlier as the first widely marketed all-vegetable hydrogenated shortening. Its purpose was to persuade cooks that a manufactured fat could replace lard and butter in every application, so the book is organised as a full year of menus with Crisco written into nearly every line -- here it appears twice in one short recipe, once in the potato and once in the frying kettle. Croquettes themselves were long established by then; the name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and they were a standard genteel way of turning leftover potato or minced meat into something presentable at table. Deep frying was exactly the argument Procter & Gamble wanted to make, since the new shortening kept longer than lard and carried less flavour of its own.