Frying in Batter a la Careme

Ingredients

• Three quarters of a pound of sifted flour
• two ounces of butter
• salt to taste
• the whites of two eggs

Method

1. 1

   Mix the sifted flour with melted butter in warm water.

2. 2

   Add enough water to make a soft paste, then beat smooth.

3. 3

   Add more warm water until the batter is thick enough to mask the back of a spoon, and salt to taste.

4. 4

   Finally, fold in the beaten egg whites.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Catherine Owen's new cook book .. (1885) by Helen Alice (Matthews) Nitsch, page 33. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

fried in batter a la Careme (see recipe), is very easy to do, and very nice. Carefully save veal, lamb, beef, and pork drippings. Keep a crock to put it in, and, clarified as I shall direct, it is much better than lard for many purposes, and for frying especially ; it does not leave the dark look that is sometimes seen on articles fried in lard. The perfection of ^^friture,'^ or frying-fat, according to Gouffe, is equal parts of lard and beef fat melted together. Yet there are families where dripping is never used — is looked upon as unfit to use — while the truth is that many persons quite unable to eat articles fried in lard would find no inconvenience from those fried in beef fat. It is as wholesome as butter, and far better for the purpose. Butter, indeed, is only good for frying such things as omelets or scrambled eggs ; things that are cooked in a very short time, and require no great degree of heat. The same may be said of oil, than which, for fish, nothing can be better. Yet it can only be used once, and is unsuitable for things requiring long-sustained heat, as it soon gets bitter and rank. On Frying and Broiling. 59 Do not be afraid to put a pound or two of fat in your pan for frying ; it is quite as economical as to put less for it can be used over and oyer again^ a pail or crock being kept for the purpose of receiving it. Always in returning it to the crobk pour it through a fine strainer, so that no sediment or brown particles may pass which would spoil the next frying. To clarify dripping, when poured from the meat-pan, it should go into a bowl, instead of the crock in which you wish to keep it. Then pour into the bowl also some boiling water, and add a little salt, stir it, and set it away. Next day, or when cold, run a knife round the bowl, and (unless it is pork) it will turn out in a solid cake, leaving the water and impurities at the bottom. Now scrape the bottom of your dripping, and put it in more boiling water till it melts, then stir again, another pinch of salt add, and let it cool again. When you take off the cake of fat, scrape it as before, and it is ready to be melted into the general crock, and will now keep for months in cool weather. If you are having frequent joints it is as well to do all your dripping together, once a week ; but do not leave it long at any season with wa- ter under it, as that would taint it. Fat skimmed from boiled meat, pot-au-feu, before the vegetables, etc., go in, is quite as good as that from roast, treated in the same way. Frying in batter is very easy and excellent for some things, such as warming over meat, being far better than eggs and crumbs. Careme gives the following recipe, which is excellent : Three quarters of a pound of sifted flour, mixed with two ounces of butter melted in warm water ; blow the butter off the water into the flour first, then enough of 6o Culture and Cooking. the water to make a soft paste^ which beat smooth, then more warm water till it is batter thick enough to mask the back of a spoon dipped into it, and salt to taste ; add the last thing the whites of two eggs

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