Kroketten & Bitterballen (Croquettes)

I've been a bit nostalgic, looking at pictures from my last vacation, nearly a year ago.

I was in The Netherlands and not only did I had fun, I ate way too much as well.

When I'm nostalgic- what do I do? I eat. What do I eat?-EVERYTHING!

So I went all out for this recipe. This is one of the funnest recipes ever! Great finger-food! Have FUN!

When studying this recipe I was partially surprise. As I was doing my homework I found out that the cooking technique and ingredients of coxinha (Brazilian croquette) and a kroket (dutch for croquette, in singular form) are quite similar. Let’s say coxinhas and kroketten are cousins, and bitterbalen are miniature of croquettes. No fear!

This will make 25 elongated kroketten (dutch for croquettes, plural form) here we go!

Ingredients:

250 gr. of minced meat

Vegetable oil for deep frying

1 white onion

1 green bell pepper

1/2 red bell pepper

3 celery sticks

4 1/2 cups of water

Salt & Black pepper to taste

2 little blocks of beef bouillon

250 gr. of butter

1 teaspoon of curry powder

1/4 complete seasoning

1 tablespoon of maggi

350 gr. of flour

3 eggs

2 packs of bread crumbs

Directions:

1. In a food processor toss in the green and red pepper together with the celery. All should be finely minced until it becomes a paste.

2. In a pot add the butter and let melt. add the minced meat and cook for approx. 10 min.

3. Add the water, the pepper and celery paste, beef bouillon, curry and the maggi. Let all cook together for 30 minutes.

4. Add the flour in small portions at the time and with a wooden spoon stir constantly and firmly. It is gonna become a dough really quick. Turn the heat off and remove the dough from the pan. Place on a clean, floured counter, cover with a clean kitchen rag, let it rest for 30 minutes.

5. Preheat frying oil, it should be very hot.

6. Now the mixture should be cold enough to work it with your hands. Make 8 cm cylindric tubes.

7. Beat the eggs. Place the bread crumbs in a flat plate.

8. Fun part, deep each "Kroket" in the beaten eggs and then cover it with the bread crumbs.

9. Deep Fry until brown. Serve warm accompanied with yellow mustard for dipping.

Tips:

1. You can double the ingredients and make some to freeze. In this case you will stop on direction number 8. The next step will be place wax paper on a baking sheet that fits your freezer and place the kroketten and cover with some more wax paper. When is time to fry, do not let them defrost, directly from the freezer to the hot oil, otherwise they will break open and you’ll have an oily mess.

2. The recipe calls for bread crumbs, but in my experience if you replace it with pulverized cornflakes, you will get a very crunchy kroket. Japanese Panko is also a good option.

3. You may also substitute the minced meat with tuna meat, or conch meat (also known in Curacao as karko).

4. If you do substitute or want to make a variety of tastes, either tuna or conch will need some additional ingredients. The new ingredients will be: 1 lemon, 1/2 tablespoon of garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, a handful of chopped parsley, and instead of water use milk.

5. Tuna or conch does not need much cooking a minute or two should be good to go. Remember that they will continue cooking later on. After cooked you might want to chop them into tiny pieces so they mix well in the dough.

6. Besides the mustard as a dip, you may also like tartar sauce, which will go incredibly well with tuna and conch kroket.

7. Do not limit your choices to beef, tuna, or conch. There’s chicken, shrimps, potato, the sky is the limit.

Enjoy!