Croquettes

Method

1. Croquettes can be made of chicken or turkey or veal, alone, but are much nicer when the meat is mixed with sweetbreads or calf’s brains and mushrooms.
2. The meat mixture must be chopped very fine.
3. Make a sauce as follows: Put a tablespoonful of butter and a half teaspoonful of onion juice into a saucepan.
4. When it bubbles add two tablespoonfuls of flour and cook it a few minutes without browning, then add slowly, so as to keep it smooth, A cupful of jellied stock, 1 teaspoonful of salt, 1 saltspoonful of pepper, A dash of paprika, A dash of celery salt, A dash of nutmeg.
5. Cook until the sauce has thickened a little.
6. Remove it from the fire, stir in a beaten egg and two cupfuls of minced meat.
7. Turn it on to a tin platter and place it on the ice to set.
8. When the mixture is set mold the croquettes into shapes pointed at one end.
9. Cover them with egg diluted with a very little water, to break the stringiness of the whites, then cover them with bread crumbs.
10. Crumbs grated from the loaf give a better color than dried crumbs composed partly of crusts.
11. Fry the croquettes in smoking-hot fat to a light-brown color, and until a thin crust is formed.
12. Place them on paper in the open oven to dry and keep hot until all are fried.
13. Arrange them symmetrically on a platter and stick a paper frill into the pointed end of each one.
14. These frills are fastened to a little stick.
15. They can be bought at confectioners’.
16. It is important to use for the sauce stock which jellies, as it hardens the mixture and makes it easy to mold, while it softens when the croquettes are fried, making them very creamy.
17. Stock will jelly if a knuckle of veal is used in making it.
18. If jellied stock is not at hand, put a level teaspoonful of soaked gelatine into a cupful of any stock or of milk.