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Cecils
Two cupfuls chopped cooked beef, yolks of two eggs, one tablespoonful butter, two tablespoonfuls bread crumbs , pepper, one teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of onion juice. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan on fire, and mix well until thoroughly heated and butter melted; then set aside until cold. When cold make into balls size of walnuts, dip in white of egg and hot water mixed together , roll in bread crumbs and fry in deep fat. Serve with brown gravy. Rare roast beef may be used for cecils.
A croquette of leftover roast beef, bound with egg yolk and fried. The whole dish hinges on the mixture being properly cold before it is shaped.
- Chill it hardThe warm mixture is loose and will fall apart in the fat. Spread it on a plate and refrigerate at least two hours, or overnight; shape the balls straight from the cold.
- Heat gentlyEgg yolks begin to thicken somewhere around 150-160F, so warm the mixture over low heat and stir constantly. The aim is a thick paste that holds together, not scrambled egg.
- Onion juiceGrate an onion on a fine grater and press the pulp through a sieve, or squeeze it in a cloth; a teaspoonful of juice takes a good-sized onion. Grated onion pulp works if you do not mind the texture.
- Bread crumbsThe two tablespoonfuls in the mixture should be dry, fine crumbs, which absorb moisture and firm the paste. For the coating use dry crumbs as well; fresh soft crumbs scorch.
- The egg washWhite of egg beaten with a little hot water is a period substitute for whole beaten egg. It works, but a whole egg loosened with a tablespoon of water gives a more even coat.
- Frying temperatureDeep fat at 375F. Fry in batches of five or six so the temperature does not drop; two to three minutes brings them golden, which is all they need since everything inside is already cooked.
- The gravyNo recipe is given. A pan gravy from the original roast, or a plain brown sauce of browned butter, flour and beef stock, would suit.
- YieldTwo cupfuls of chopped beef, with the other ingredients, gives something over twenty walnut-sized balls.
Cecils are a standing feature of nineteenth-century English and American cookery books, and belong squarely to the economy of the Sunday roast: cold beef reappearing on Tuesday in a form that did not look like leftovers. Versions in the period's cookery books are generally shaped into balls or small cones, egged, crumbed and fried. The name's origin is genuinely obscure. That this one appears under "Sandwiches" rather than with the made-over meats may say more about the loose organisation of the period's general-purpose cook books than about how the dish was eaten.