The yolks of two eggs and a tea-spoonful of flour, and a scant half pint of milk or cream, a pinch of salt, a quarter of a small nutmeg and a table-spoonful of sugar. The flour and yolks of eggs to be well beaten with a little of the milk, the rest to be added warm, and all beaten very well together with the sugar and salt and nutmeg. This will make a custard, to be baked in a shallow round dish till firm, then put to get cold. Make a batter of a gill of milk (half cream, the recipe called for), one whole egg and enough flour to make it thick enough to quite mask the back of a spoon without running off,—two level table-spoonfuls are about enough; beat one of the whites of eggs left from the custard till it will not slip from the dish; put to the batter, which must be quite smooth, the grated rind of half a lemon, a pinch of salt, and then add the beaten white of egg, stirring very slowly after this is in. Cut the custard into six pieces, pie-fashion, and dip each piece into the batter, and drop it into boiling lard.
The recipe sounded very well to Molly, and her mind went over all sorts of improvements in flavoring, from simply adding vanilla to the introduction of chopped citron or crumbled macaroons into the custard; but she would make the recipe as given, or as nearly as she could interpret it, first.
Although the fritters would be much better hot, perhaps, the book gave no clew to that; she knew they must be good warmed over, or even cold, and as she did not want to leave the dinner-table to attend to the frying,—being an experiment,—she felt she must do it herself. She decided to cook them at once; the custard required very careful handling while it was being dipped in the batter, and she found the safest plan to prevent breaking was to pour the batter into a saucer, and take up the fritter, when dipped, on a broad knife. The batter completely hid the custard, and when dropped into the fat, which was very hot, it puffed up outside and doubled the size.
They took two minutes to get pale brown, and then they were laid on paper to drain; and after the sugar was sifted on them they certainly were pretty to look at, and at dinner were found to bear out their good appearance, and Molly added them to her special recipes.
The Dresden patties she wanted Marta to understand making, because they were so easy, so useful, and so pretty. With a view to making them, Molly had kept half a stale loaf that was as light as baker’s bread,—too light, she thought, for the table; from it she cut two slices two inches thick and from them she cut, with a medium sized biscuit-cutter, three rounds; the cutter was simply a circle of tin with a handle over it, so that the cutter went right through the bread; had it had a top to prevent it going through, she would have cut them with a half-pound baking-powder box. On the top of each round of bread she cut a smaller circle as for pastry patties; now she beat an egg, added half a pint of milk with a pinch of salt, and stood the three patties in it, telling Marta to let them stay so at least an hour, turning them about, but being careful not to break them, the idea being to let the egg and milk soak well into them, and to make them as moist as possible without breaking. It will be remembered that one sweetbread only was cooked two days ago; the other was now cut into dice, two tea-spoonfuls of flour and butter and a gill of stock made into béchamel sauce, and the sweetbreads put to it with a table-spoonful of oyster liquor (as she happened to have it). This thinned the sauce sufficiently to let the sweetbreads cook in it without burning. By the time they were done the sauce would be reduced again and very thick (or, if it should not be, the sweetbreads would be taken out, and the sauce boiled fast and stirred till very thick).
Marta had the lard ready, very hot indeed, when Molly came out to show her how to fry the patties. She put them to drain, using a cake-turner, for they would not bear handling.
“At some times these are rolled in flour, at others in egg and crumbs, and I think they are prettier for crumbing; but it is not necessary, and I will save an egg. Now I am going to drop them into the fat, which is as hot as it can be without burning. Stand aside, for it will splutter very much.” Each one was dropped from the end of the cake-turner, and, as Molly said, they “spluttered.”
“I leave them on the very hottest part of the fire, because they are filled with cold custard, which will keep the temperature about right for five minutes; then draw them a little aside if they are brown, and let them remain two minutes.” When taken up they were a bright brown, looking almost like a doughnut that had been shaped like a small Charlotte Russe. The centre was then scooped out, leaving about half an inch of crust all round, which was filled with the fricasseed sweetbreads piled in the centre.
“The beauty of these patties is that they can be made early and heated in the oven, and that they are suitable for dessert with preserves, or are excellent filled with any kind of rich minced meat or oysters.”
Molly had long wanted to make an experiment with oysters; she believed simply panned and served with brown butter they would be delicious. She had never heard of “oysters au beurre noir,” but, knowing they must be good, resolved to try the experiment. She waited, however, till Harry was in the house, for they would spoil by standing.