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Queen's Tidbits
(France.) Make a good puff paste, roll it very thin, cut into circles and put two together with a filling as for chicken croquettes, and bake in a hot oven. Sweetbreads or mushrooms, mixed with stock, may be used instead of chicken. These are dainty morsels, but very rich fare.
A two-line French recipe that assumes you already know how to make croquette filling. The whole thing hinges on that filling being stiff and cold before it goes anywhere near pastry.
- The filling is the hinge"As for chicken croquettes" means minced cooked chicken bound with a very thick veloute or bechamel — roughly a cup of thick sauce to two cups of meat — then spread on a plate and chilled until firm. If it is loose or warm it will steam, split the seam and boil out onto the sheet.
- Puff pasteRolled "very thin" probably means somewhere around 1/8 in. All-butter frozen puff pastry is a fair substitute; keep it cold and cut with a floured cutter, pressing straight down rather than twisting so the layers can lift.
- Hot ovenThe book gives no temperature; a period "hot oven" is usually taken as roughly 425-450F. Puff pastry needs the initial blast to turn its water to steam; bake until deep gold rather than pale, which for small rounds is likely in the region of 15 to 25 minutes.
- SealingBrush the bottom circle's rim with water or beaten egg, mound a scant teaspoon of cold filling in the centre, top and press the edges firmly with a fork or the back of a small cutter. Egg-wash the tops only — glaze running down the sides glues the layers shut.
- SweetbreadsIf you use them, they need soaking in several changes of cold water, blanching, trimming of membrane, then pressing between two plates under a weight until cold and sliceable. Butchers rarely stock them; order ahead.
- MushroomsCook them down hard in butter until the pan is dry before adding stock and a little thickening. Undercooked mushrooms release water inside the pastry.
- Yield and servingEach tidbit takes two circles, so a single sheet of puff pastry cut in 2 1/2 in rounds gives only about half a dozen finished, depending on the size of the sheet. Serve warm, two or three per person as a first course — the original's warning about rich fare is accurate.
These are what a French kitchen would call baked rissoles: the same forcemeat that would otherwise be shaped, crumbed and deep-fried as a croquette, sealed between rounds of puff paste instead. With a Saucepan over the Sea collected dishes from abroad for American cooks, and this entry is characteristic of the way such books handled France — a technique sketched in two sentences, on the assumption that the reader owned a general cookbook with a croquette recipe in it. The choice of chicken, sweetbreads or mushrooms reflects the turn-of-the-century hierarchy of delicate fillings; sweetbreads in particular were prized then as a genteel, expensive item and have since dropped almost entirely out of the domestic repertoire. "Tidbit" for a small savoury mouthful was ordinary English usage of the period, and the "Queen's" is decorative rather than documented.