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Broiled Frog's Legs
Frog's legs should be broiled over a quick fire, quick enough to brown them crisply on the outside, without drying and charring the inside. While cooking season lightly with a dressing of salt, white pepper, and melted butter, and just before serving squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on each morsel. Serve immediately when cooked, with buttered toast and creamed potato. They are delicious fried in hot butter daintily seasoned and served on toast and melted butter turned over them.
A short, confident set of directions that assumes you know what a broiler is and how fast small bones cook. The main thing the original leaves out is timing.
- "A quick fire"Cook them close to the heat: a broiler element preheated on high with the rack 3-4 inches below, or a very hot grill. The whole point of the direction is that the surface must brown before the thin meat overcooks.
- TimingSmall to medium legs need about 2-3 minutes a side, larger ones 4. They are done when the flesh at the thickest part of the thigh is opaque to the bone and pulls away easily; another minute past that and they turn stringy.
- Buy them preparedFrog's legs come skinned and trimmed, usually frozen in pairs, from Asian and Latin American groceries and good fishmongers. Thaw in the refrigerator, then pat very dry, or they will steam rather than brown.
- YieldThe book gives none. Judge by appetite as a breakfast or light course, allowing more of the small legs than of the large farmed type.
- Basting, not marinating"Season while cooking" means brushing the melted butter with salt and white pepper stirred into it as they broil. White pepper was commonly chosen for pale meats so no dark flecks show; black pepper works but looks different.
- Lemon at the endAcid on the meat before broiling firms and dulls the surface. A few drops squeezed over at the table, as written, is the better order.
- "Creamed potato"Most likely mashed potato loosened with hot cream and butter, though the term was also used in this period for cut potatoes in a cream sauce.
- The frying variationThe second method is a straight sauté over high heat, two to three minutes a side. Dredging the legs in seasoned flour first, though not mentioned, gives a better crust.
Frog's legs reached American cookbooks by two routes: French restaurant cooking, where cuisses de grenouilles had long been a delicacy, and rural American hunting, where bullfrogs taken from ponds and creeks were a summer-night's catch. The flesh is lean, mild and almost bone-dry once overcooked, which is why the instruction insists on a fierce fire and butter throughout. Commercial frog farming and large-scale imports came later in the twentieth century, and today nearly all frog's legs sold in the United States arrive frozen from abroad, several states having restricted wild harvest.