Fish Croquettes

Ingredients

• $ teacupful cold boiled fish
• 1 breakfastcupful ground nut oil
• 1 teacupful mashed boiled yam or sweet potato
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoonful butter, lard or ground nut oil
• 1 tablespoonful bread crumbs or crushed biscuits
• 2 tablespoonfuls flour
• 1 teaspoonful finely chopped onion
• 1 pinch salt and pepper, black or red
• (A teaspoonful minced parsley or tatassa and a pinch of nutmeg)

Method

1. 1

   Break up the fish with a fork, removing bones and skin.

2. 2

   Mix to a paste with the mashed yam, add the salt, pepper, the chopped onion, (and if available, the nutmeg, chopped parsley and tatassa,) the butter, and lastly one of the eggs well beaten.

3. 3

   If this paste is not quite thick enough to be shaped, add a pinch of flour; if too thick, a little more butter or lard; then shape with two knives into round cakes, 0.5-inch thickness, and about two inches in diameter.

4. 4

   Put the oil into the flat saucepan and set it to heat over a good fire, watching it from time to time to see that it does not burn.

5. 5

   Break the second egg into a soup plate and beat it slightly.

6. 6

   Spread the flour over one half of the cook’s board and the bread crumbs over the other; turn the cakes first in the flour, then in the egg, and lastly in the bread crumbs, pressing them well into the latter so that the crumbs adhere evenly to both sides of the cakes.

7. 7

   By this time the fat should be ready for frying; when it has ceased to bubble, carefully slide in the cakes, which should be covered by the fat.

8. 8

   Turn them over as soon as they are yellow, and take them out when pale brown.

9. 9

   Serve very hot; a good tomato sauce improves them.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical West African cookery (1910) by S. Leith-Ross, page 25. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Fish Croquettes. (I). $ teacupful cold boiled fish. 1 breakfastcupful ground nut oil. 1 teacupful mashed boiled yam or sweet potato. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful butter, lard or ground nut oil. 1 tablespoonful bread crumbs or crushed biscuits. 2 tablespoon fuls flour. 1 teaspoonful finely chopped onion. 1 pinch salt and pepper, black or red. (A teaspoonful minced parsley or tatassa and a pinch of nutmeg.

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.