My mom would make Potato Croquettes whenever she needed to fill out a meal. We sometimes had then 2 or 3 times in a week. It didn’t matter – they were so good my sister and I would fight over them.
It was Restaurant Week in my home town earlier this month and my wife and I decided to take advantage and try a new Mediterranean place that people had been buzzing about. It was a pretty cool deal, for $30.00 you got an appetizer, a main course and your choice of dessert.
When I first glanced at the menu I saw Potato Croquettes with goat cheese as an appetizer choice. I started telling my wife how Gracie would make them all the time, and how my sister and I would polish off whatever she put out. Of course she knew this, as I tend to tell stories over and over again. Hmm, maybe that’s why I like blogging.
So my obvious choice for an appetizer was the Potato Croquettes served over melted goat cheese. The combination was truly amazing and when my wife asked for a taste, it brought me back to how my mom used to make me share, against my will, with my sister.
So that evening I came home and searched the internet to see if I could find a recipe that resembled this dish. Although I was unable to come up with an exact match I did come up with a combination that I think you will not only enjoy reading about but preparing as well.
Let’s start with Gracie’s Basic Potato Croquettes Recipe:
- 1 lb. potatoes
- 2 tbsp. grated cheese
- 1 egg
- 1 clove of minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp. fresh chopped Italian parsley
- 1/4 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup flour – more if needed
- 1/2 cup olive oil
Clean potatoes well and boil with skins till tender. Drain, cool, peel and mash the potatoes. Mix the potatoes with the grated cheese, egg, garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper.
Here’s the new part (borrowed in part from foodnflavors.com):
Begin by rolling each croquette into either a cylinder or an oval. Mom went with a oval I prefer a cylinder. With you finger work a piece of goat cheese into the center and roll again. Continue this process until you finish off the mix or in my first go with this, run out of goat cheese.
Roll in flour and saute in moderately hot oil until golden brown on both sides. Vegetable oil works best. Check to make sure the goat cheese doesn’t escape from the cylinders, but if some does run out it’s no big deal.
To be safe, heat the oil to 180C and only place a few croquettes at a time in the oil. Between batches wait until the oil returns to the 180C temperature This will help to ensure that they will not burst. Move the croquettes to a tray layered with paper towels.
For a real treat, serve with the Balsamic Mayo we featured in our Balsamic Blog last week. Here are the basics of that mayo again, in case you missed it or click here.
- 3 eggs,
- a teaspoon of Balsamic Condimento
- juice of half a lemon
I am truly sorrow I don’t have any photos of the finished product, as my camera was not working right. I do promise that if Santa brings me a new camera, I will take some quality shots of this dish and do a re-post.
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