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My favorite food ever is croquettes.
In the US croquettes tend to be made of meat. Deep-fried crab cakes are pretty much croquettes. I've also had some croquettes made of poultry in diners. In Japan they do fill croquettes with a little meat, but the first Japanese croquettes I had were made primarily out of mashed potatoes that were breaded with panko, and deep fried. (I'm told this happens in some parts of Europe, too.) Another popular variation is white sauce, like that stuff on fettucine alfredo without the cheese-y tang, bewitched into semisolid form, and also breaded and fried.
I can say with certainty that it's like cheesy fries x100. It is crispier, gooier, creamier, softer, greasier, fattier, and better for killing yourself, oh yeah and you eat them with white rice! To give you an idea of how I space this out, I believe it's been years since I last had croquettes at home. (I might have had some from a store last summer.) At least with meat croquettes you get protein.
1. Make a filling. I don't know what you do for this part if you use all meat and I really don't care. If you make white sauce, make it the thickest freaking white sauce you ever made. If you use mashed potatoes, be conservative with the milk. Make 2 cups of whatever.
2. Cut up some onions into little pieces the way Cooking Mama does and pan fry them in an oil of your choice (I used butter) until they're soft. Use 1/2 an onion for 6 croquettes. If you're weird you can use scallions.
3. Cook any bits of meat you will use in your croquettes. In my estimation, you are still allowed to call them cream or potato croquettes if the meat is less than the other stuff by volume. It should be little bits of meat too, like fried hamburger or bacon bits. It is also acceptable to cut up steamed shrimp or use shreds of crab meat.
4. Mix the base, the meat, and the onions together so that they're fairly even. Flavor with a little salt and pepper. Nutmeg can be nice in sweet potato croquettes. I used a recipe that said to put semisolid bouillon and the sake use to cook the shrimp in the white sauce.
5. Spread out your filling in a flat pan (a cookie sheet is okay, but a square/rectangular casserole is better) and let it cool for like, 3 hours. I MEAN IT.
HOURS. Even in the fridge. It's a little faster in a freezer.
This is terribly important because whatever you use for filling must be at least cool enough to handle. Also, if your white sauce doesn't gel up, you won't be able to bread it and then people won't call you a witch for your life-changing fried white sauce.
6. Go play a video game or watch TV. Stop messing with the filling.
7. When your filling looks ready to handle, use a knife to cut it into somewhat equal parts (about six) and scoop them out. I get the feeling if I had done this right I would have been able to do this with my hands, but the white sauce was still soft so I used a big spoon to get it out of the casserole dish.
8. Shape the croquettes. Popular shapes are flat, round/oval patties, round balls, and cylinders (tawara, or as my father fondly referred to them, "doots.")
9. Bread the croquettes. Cover each one in flour, then dip them in beaten egg, and coat them with breadcrumbs. Normal breadcrumbs might be a little healthier, because panko REALLY hold the grease. Now line them up on a plate or a cooking sheet---don't stack them---and get them to the deep-fryer.
10. Cook your croquettes in oil at a temperature of 360 degrees fahrenheit (180 celsius). If you are using frozen croquettes, I am told that cooking them at any lower temperature is a polite invitation for your croquettes to turn themselves inside out while cooking. You may turn the oil down if you think it's getting really crazy in there. Don't put a lot of croquettes in at once, either, because they lower the temperature of the oil.
11. Once you put your croquettes in the fryer, DON'T TOUCH THEM. Wait at least two minutes. This is especially important with frozen croquettes, not that I know why. You want the egg in the coating to remain undisturbed while it cooks and forms a shell around the soft filling. The croquettes sank first when I made them, so if you use a nice deep machine you won't need to flip them over much.
12. About 2 minutes after you put a croquette in, start watching it for 1. fewer bubbles (the frying will sound quieter) 2. "fox-colored" golden brown color that is sometimes represented with the color orange in video games 3. floating. When the croquette is done, remove it with a slotted spoon or whatever you can use that's very stable (don't drop that mother in the hot oil), and let it dry on a rack (preferably) or on some paper towels.
13. Feel free to wait until your whole batch is fried, but once that happens don't waste any time digging in. Croquettes are meant to be warm. Eat with plain white rice (CARB PARTY! ^______________^), cabbage cut into threads with tomatoes, and tonkatsu sauce. If you haven't trashed your kitchen, you may set about doing it with miso soup or some kind of vegetable addition. I would like mushrooms, myself.
Common combinations
Mashed potatoes/ground meat (beef, pork, chicken, whatever)/peas, carrots, corn
Mashed potatoes flavored with curry powder
Mashed potatoes/processed cheese/hard-boiled egg bits
Mashed satsuma sweet potatoes/baconnnnn
White sauce/crab, shrimp, sometimes scallops/corn
Okara/god knows what
One recipe I saw used mashed potatoes, scallions instead of onions and shiitake bits instead of meat. Hmm.
In the US croquettes tend to be made of meat. Deep-fried crab cakes are pretty much croquettes. I've also had some croquettes made of poultry in diners. In Japan they do fill croquettes with a little meat, but the first Japanese croquettes I had were made primarily out of mashed potatoes that were breaded with panko, and deep fried. (I'm told this happens in some parts of Europe, too.) Another popular variation is white sauce, like that stuff on fettucine alfredo without the cheese-y tang, bewitched into semisolid form, and also breaded and fried.
I can say with certainty that it's like cheesy fries x100. It is crispier, gooier, creamier, softer, greasier, fattier, and better for killing yourself, oh yeah and you eat them with white rice! To give you an idea of how I space this out, I believe it's been years since I last had croquettes at home. (I might have had some from a store last summer.) At least with meat croquettes you get protein.
1. Make a filling. I don't know what you do for this part if you use all meat and I really don't care. If you make white sauce, make it the thickest freaking white sauce you ever made. If you use mashed potatoes, be conservative with the milk. Make 2 cups of whatever.
2. Cut up some onions into little pieces the way Cooking Mama does and pan fry them in an oil of your choice (I used butter) until they're soft. Use 1/2 an onion for 6 croquettes. If you're weird you can use scallions.
3. Cook any bits of meat you will use in your croquettes. In my estimation, you are still allowed to call them cream or potato croquettes if the meat is less than the other stuff by volume. It should be little bits of meat too, like fried hamburger or bacon bits. It is also acceptable to cut up steamed shrimp or use shreds of crab meat.
4. Mix the base, the meat, and the onions together so that they're fairly even. Flavor with a little salt and pepper. Nutmeg can be nice in sweet potato croquettes. I used a recipe that said to put semisolid bouillon and the sake use to cook the shrimp in the white sauce.
5. Spread out your filling in a flat pan (a cookie sheet is okay, but a square/rectangular casserole is better) and let it cool for like, 3 hours. I MEAN IT.
HOURS. Even in the fridge. It's a little faster in a freezer.
This is terribly important because whatever you use for filling must be at least cool enough to handle. Also, if your white sauce doesn't gel up, you won't be able to bread it and then people won't call you a witch for your life-changing fried white sauce.
6. Go play a video game or watch TV. Stop messing with the filling.
7. When your filling looks ready to handle, use a knife to cut it into somewhat equal parts (about six) and scoop them out. I get the feeling if I had done this right I would have been able to do this with my hands, but the white sauce was still soft so I used a big spoon to get it out of the casserole dish.
8. Shape the croquettes. Popular shapes are flat, round/oval patties, round balls, and cylinders (tawara, or as my father fondly referred to them, "doots.")
9. Bread the croquettes. Cover each one in flour, then dip them in beaten egg, and coat them with breadcrumbs. Normal breadcrumbs might be a little healthier, because panko REALLY hold the grease. Now line them up on a plate or a cooking sheet---don't stack them---and get them to the deep-fryer.
10. Cook your croquettes in oil at a temperature of 360 degrees fahrenheit (180 celsius). If you are using frozen croquettes, I am told that cooking them at any lower temperature is a polite invitation for your croquettes to turn themselves inside out while cooking. You may turn the oil down if you think it's getting really crazy in there. Don't put a lot of croquettes in at once, either, because they lower the temperature of the oil.
11. Once you put your croquettes in the fryer, DON'T TOUCH THEM. Wait at least two minutes. This is especially important with frozen croquettes, not that I know why. You want the egg in the coating to remain undisturbed while it cooks and forms a shell around the soft filling. The croquettes sank first when I made them, so if you use a nice deep machine you won't need to flip them over much.
12. About 2 minutes after you put a croquette in, start watching it for 1. fewer bubbles (the frying will sound quieter) 2. "fox-colored" golden brown color that is sometimes represented with the color orange in video games 3. floating. When the croquette is done, remove it with a slotted spoon or whatever you can use that's very stable (don't drop that mother in the hot oil), and let it dry on a rack (preferably) or on some paper towels.
13. Feel free to wait until your whole batch is fried, but once that happens don't waste any time digging in. Croquettes are meant to be warm. Eat with plain white rice (CARB PARTY! ^______________^), cabbage cut into threads with tomatoes, and tonkatsu sauce. If you haven't trashed your kitchen, you may set about doing it with miso soup or some kind of vegetable addition. I would like mushrooms, myself.
Common combinations
Mashed potatoes/ground meat (beef, pork, chicken, whatever)/peas, carrots, corn
Mashed potatoes flavored with curry powder
Mashed potatoes/processed cheese/hard-boiled egg bits
Mashed satsuma sweet potatoes/baconnnnn
White sauce/crab, shrimp, sometimes scallops/corn
Okara/god knows what
One recipe I saw used mashed potatoes, scallions instead of onions and shiitake bits instead of meat. Hmm.
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