Handbook of practical cookery

Place the flour into a bowl and rub into it the butter. When mixed, make a well in the centre of it, put into it the water, lemon-juice, and the remainder of the salt, kneading all firmly together. Roll this paste out as firmly as possible, and cut it into rounds with a biscuit-cutter. Beat the egg until very light, and brush the edges of the rounds with it. Put into the centre of each round of paste as much of the mixed chicken and tongue as it will hold, when the edges must be gathered up and pinched firmly together. When filled, roll each of the croquettes first into the egg and then into the bread crumbs, and throwing them into hot clarified fat or lard, let them cook for five minutes. When done, take them from the fat, place them for a moment upon a piece of kitchen-paper to drain, arrange them neatly in a napkin folded in cup shape, and garnish with parsley. Rice Croquettes. — One quart of milk, three quarters of a pound of rice, three ounces of sugar, one tea-spoonful of lemon- juice, two eggs, four table-spoonfuls of bread crumbs, one half salt-spoonful of salt. Wash the rice thoroughly, put it into a sauce-pan, and pour over it the milk. Cover the sauce-pan closely, and putting it over the fire without having stirred the contents, let all simmer slowly for twenty minutes. At the end of this time remove the sauce-pan from the fire, stir in the yolks of eggs, lemon-juice, salt, and half of the sugar, beat all thoroughly together, and turn out, when mixed, the compound into a bowl, and let it stand until it becomes thoroughly cooL When this mixture is quite cold, mould it into small equalsized balls, beat the whites of egg until quite light, and dip the balls therein. Roll them in the bread crumbs, which must have been placed upon a sheet of kitchen-paper for this purpose, and throwing the croquettes from this into hot clarified fat or lard, let them fry for two minutes. When done, take them from the fat, place them upon a sheet of kitchen-paper to drain for a moment, and serve them in a folded napkin, with the remainder of the sugar sprinkled over them. NOTES. — If it is preferred, these croquettes can be made without the sugar ; and if so done, a little more salt may be used. It must be observed that the rice is not to be stirred when boiled for this preparation, otherwise the grains will be broken and the danger be incurred of its sticking fast to the bottom of the saucepan, and so scorching. Crab Croquettes. — Two crabs, three ounces of butter, three ounces of flour, one half pint of milk, one tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, four table-spoonfuls of bread crumbs, one egg, one half tea-spoonful of pepper, one tea-spoonful of salt, one grain of cayenne. Throw the crabs into boiling water, and let them boil for fifteen minutes. Remove the meat from the shells and chop it coarsely. Melt the butter in a sauce-pan, stir into it the flour, and add to this by degrees the milk. When this is brought to the boiling-point, let it boil for two minutes thereafter, and take it from the fire. Throw into the sauce-pan the meat from the crabs, add to the mixture thus formed the cayenne, salt, pepper, and anchovy sauce, and when thorouglily mixed, turn it out upon a plate and allow it to cool.