Leftovers are awesome fried...then again anything is. For these croquettes, we just used leftover mashed potatoes and pork, blended it until combined, and then incorporate it with a bechamel sauce (recipe below) and added a lot of cheese as a thickening agent. Once it's at a consistency in which you can roll it like dough, you shape them into fat cylinders and then coat them alternating between egg and breadcrumb until it's coated thick enough so when you fry it, it has a crispy outter crust and the inside just OOZES out. :)
The recipe was really by eye since croquettes don't usually call for mashed potatoes, we just used them to get rid of them. The really cool thing about croquettes is that you can use anything you have leftover. Chicken, pork, ham, whatever tastes good to you. If you decide to make these with leftover mashed potatoes, just keep combining the cheese with it until it's to a thick consistency because if it's runny, it won't fry the way you need it to.
Here's the Bechamel Sauce, which is a creamy white sauce that is really good with croquettes. Following this recipe will be the basic potato croquette recipe :)
Bechamel Sauce5 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups milk
2 teaspoons salt
1. In a medium saucepan, heat the butter over medium-low heat until melted.
2. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Over medium heat, cook until the mixture turns a light, golden color about 6-7 mins.
3. While it's cooking, heat the milk in a separate pan until just about to boil and then add the hot milk to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time, whisking continuously until very smooth.
4. Bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes stirring constantly, then remove from heat.
Seasons with salt to taste.
Basic Potato Croquette Recipe1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
chopped green onion
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups mashed potatoes
A few eggs, or however many you need to coat it thick enough for frying
Bread Crumbs
Vegetable Oil, enough to fill pan 1/2-inch
Combine the mashed potatoes, flour, green onion, salt and pepper. If you're using the bechemel sauce like I did, add lots of cheese (any kind you like) to make it thicker. It tastes reaallly good with cheese, so I advise you use it.
Roll batter into fat cylinders and dip in the egg and breadcrumb, alternating so that you get a really thick coating.
Heat the oil in your pan to 375 degrees and put a few croquettes in at a time, don't overcrowd it. They are done once they are golden brown. Yum :) Enjoy.
For dinner, my boyfriend and I went to the Legal Seafoods restaurant in South Shore Plaza in Braintree, MA. We've been here a few times before, and I always get their fried calamari. This time, I wanted to try something different so for $9.99 I got their Thai Style Fried Calamari with pineapple and peanut. I personally don't like things too spicy, and I am aware that Thai Peanut sauce CAN be spicy, but this was too spicy (for me). It left my mouth burning, but obviously it will depend person to person. My biggest problem with it though, is that it really annoys me when people bother frying calamari if they're just going to drench it in sauce and make it soggy. Really, that defeats the purpose of frying for the crispiness. I figured they would have two dipping sauces, one pineapple and one thai peanut sauce, but it came out like this already soaked. I had the same experience with calamari somewhere else, but it was that bad that I don't even remember the restauran I had it in. :( So, this is just going into my pile of Restaurant Mistakes.
Our entree, however, was pretty good. For about $23 we split the Lobster and Crabmeat Ravioli with Vodka Tomato Sauce with Chickpea bread and Salad. The picture is only half of the entree, and my boyfriend had the other half on his plate. First bite of the ravioli and you can really taste the lobster. They also gave us the meat of two claws of a lobster. The vodka tomato sauce really brought the whole dish together. Overrall, I'd rate it a 3 out of 5. My boyfriend liked it more than I did.
