Kroketjes

Last week Jan attempted to make mashed potatoes by putting the boiled potatoes in a blender. It came out gooey like a pasty glue, and a thought immediately came to my mind: kroketjes.

Kroketjes is a Dutch finger food (well, European to some people), and I haven't eaten this thing in over forty years. So the other day, I pulled out my old, old Indonesian recipe book written in Indonesian (I googled this book, and a European antique book dealer wanted USD50 for the two volumes) and recipe no. 151 is for how to make kroketjes. With my rusty ability in reading Indonesian, I made this dish and it tasted just like I remembered it. Here's the recipe in English:

Ragout filling, allowed to cool in the refrigerator
(some ingredients mentioned in Pandai Masak omitted, e.g., Lidah asin = salted tongue?).

Ingredients:
1 skinless boiled chicken breast, chopped up finely into 1/4 inch cubes
1 Carrot, skinned and chopped up finely into 1/4 inch squares
1/4 cup of finely chopped onion
1/3 cup of flour
1/2 stick of butter
Milk
Powdered nutmeg
Salt and pepper, as needed.

Saute the onion in butter until translucent, then add the remaining ingredients except the milk for a few minutes, then add milk a little at a time until the mix is similar to the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste, as needed. Set it aside and let it cool down.

Kroketjes

Ingredients:

Mashed potatoes, the kind that are gooey and sticks together (quantity: well how many do you want to make, assuming large egg sized pieces?)
2 cups of bread crumbs
2 eggs
2 egg whites (for coating, see instruction)
salt and pepper, as needed
Frying oil

Mixed the two eggs with the mashed potatoes (as a binder agent), add salt and pepper as needed.
Using a greased hand/palm, using a spoon scoop a small amount of the mashed potatoes on to your left palm, make a depression into this portion, scoop a small ragout filling into it, and cover it with another small scoop of more mashed potatoes. If your right palm is also greased, you can then make a small oval ball the size of a large egg. Roll this kroketjes into the egg white, then into the bread crumbs, thus covering the entire kroketjes with bread crumbs. Do the egg and bread crumb rolling twice and set it aside on a tray.

Fry the kroketjes in a medium deep pan oil (at least 2 inch of oil), 2-3 at a time) until golden brown. Turn it once or twice to get both halves evenly brown.

Serve on a small plate with yellow mustard for dipping. Ummh, so good.

Side note: Jan saved the gooey mashed potatoes for me, and started over with the correct type of potatoes (russett), and NO blender, just mashing tool. It turned out better, that time around.