Tuesday 11 June 2013

Sam's First Potato Croquettes

Hello everyone!
We have been very busy with the wedding organisation, but now it's all over and we're back from the honeymoon, Sam's First Times is now back by popular demand! And we start off with a special double bill!

The first is a basic recipe of the deliciously crunchy potato croquettes.

Sam first discovered these in Barceloneta, where they make a delicious bacon version. In addition, his culinary interests have been expanding, after the discovery of a certain Nadia G, who popped up on the Food Network, one night when I was watching the addictive "Amazing Wedding Cakes". Her no-nonsense punky style combined with her Italian good looks and irreverent humour in "Bitchin' Kitchen" was obviously going to be a winner with Sam. Despite her obvious attractions, her recipes actually check out, and are thoughtful and encourage people to use quality ingredients in proper home cooked meals.
So we used her recipe for croquettes:
Four large Maris Piper potatoes (or any others good for mashing)
1 tsp of oil
1 garlic clove
A handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
A handful of grated Parmegianno or other hard cheese
Flour for rolling in
2 eggs
Seasoned breadcrumbs

So, we started off with cooking the potatoes for about 15 - 20 minutes and then peeling the skin off (with Maris Pipers, the skins just falls right off after cooking).
Sam did the mashing, while I chopped the garlic. Nadia G recommends to lightly fry the garlic in the oil and then add it altogether to the mash
Then we added the chopped parsley and seasoning:
Of course, at this point, you would also add the hard cheese of your choice, but since Sam was involved, this had to be cheese-free. So I added a hefty pinch of Vegeta instead to give it some flavour :)
Once you've flavoured all your mash, you should leave the mix in the fridge for it to cool down enough to handle. Most recipes say leave for 30 mins or so.
After thoroughly washing your hands, you're then ready for the next stage - rolling into croquette shapes! Then roll in the flour, followed by the beaten egg.

At this stage Sam asked me what it meant to beat an egg - I think he thought it meant throwing them against a hard surface or punching them! Luckily I was on hand to give a quick demonstration with a fork.

Finally, roll the eggy croquettes into the breadcrumbs. We flavoured ours with some Nando's chip spice to give it some spice. The recipe suggests "Italian seasoning" but really, you can use anything you fancy.
Then we used our usual frying pan and just did a shallow fry, which seemed to work out fine:
We got ten croquettes from this recipe, which was just enough for our hungry appetites!
Overall, these were much easier to make than I imagined, and although it's not a weekday supper accompaniment, they still turned out quite well, and next time we'll try something more adventurous like putting bacon bits into the mash!
Sam: "It was nice to get back into the culinary saddle after a long hiatus. These were so fun to make, because there were so many different stages, and I got to dip things into eggs. As a rookie chef, it was nice to be doing something with your hands and they turned out really well. They tasted much better than supermarket ones! 9/10" 

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