Croquettes

I feel so chuffed with myself. I made a broth and had used the meat and extra vegetables to make a soup. Then I saved the leftovers and divvied up the broth from the solids again. What to do? Make tonight's meal. I used the broth to make a couscous salad. I used the meat (beef shin and chicken leg meat) and vegetables to make some Croquettes. How many times have I made them before? Including today, that would be once! Yet, here I sit, pleased and quite satisfied that they were as delicate as I remember. My memory of them is of an uncle making huge quantities of them, and my rather large extended family wolfing them down as quickly as they came from the deep fryer. I remember them being delicate, and cylindrical, crispy outside and mildly-flavoured within. I guess I was perhaps eight or nine years old the last time I tried them. As I was born back in the 60's this was some time ago now. Not a lot to go on really. Sure I could have looked for recipes online, but I really wanted to go it alone and experiment. It paid off. Difficult to give a recipe as I just worked with leftovers, but I'll give it a go.

Croquettes

One quantity of leftover cooked meat and vegetables. Best results I think are for the veg to include a substantial amount of potato, mine also had carrots. I guess the amount of mixture was about two to three cups.
1-2 eggs
4-6 spring onions, finely sliced
2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt
pepper
1/2 cup semolina flour
1-2 eggs extra
splash of milk
1 cup packaged breadcrumbs
2 tbsp panko crumbs
oil for frying

Puree the meat and vegetables in a mouli or food processor, and add one egg. Check for consistency, you want a fairly pasty mix, not too wet as there is no flour added to this. Add a second egg only if needed. I chose to add the parsley and spring onions after processing. Taste mixture and add salt and pepper. Cover mixture and leave in fridge to firm up (I did this the night before).

Form mixture into thick cylindrical shapes. I prefer to return the moulded mix to the fridge again to firm up as it's very delicate and more difficult to work the warmer they are.

The coating is easy. Beat the egg/s and add a little milk. Combine the breadcrumbs and panko crumbs. Dip each of the croquettes in the semolina flour ensuring they're covered. Then roll them in the egg and finally the combined crumbs. Pop back in the fridge until you are ready to cook them.

Heat the oil. I think the ideal temperature for this is about 190C. I have no idea as I don't own a thermometer, but I pop the handle of a wooden spoon in the oil, and if little bubbles immediately appear around the handle I know the oil is hot enough. You can add a little square of bread, and it should turn golden in about 30 seconds, quicker than that and it's too hot, longer and yes, too cold.

Cook the croquettes in batches until golden, and drain on clumps of absorbent paper before serving. I was able to cook them in two batches of six.

This made 12 croquettes, but, as it was relying on leftovers, it depends I suppose on how much you start with.


They look nearly perfect. A couple of them did split a little, but nothing drastic, they stayed together and I was told by Miss Six that those 'darker bits' are especially yummy.