I have been making sweet snacks such as cakes, muffins, brownies, and even sweet bread for quite some time, so I thought that I had enough and it was time to switch to something salty and savoury. I actually prefer the savoury snack better than sweet ones, but most of the savoury snacks that I knew had to be deep-fried. To me, everything deep-fried is always good and delicious, but not so healthy and requires lots of work like cleaning the stove, the pan, and not to mention the amount of used oil that I had to throw after the cooking process. Still, I really wanted to eat something savoury instead of sweet since my boy actually also preferred savoury dishes more than sweet ones.
My favourite choice of savoury snack to make was none other than something that I really liked since I was a little child (so it has been more than 35 years) and it was croquette, or known as kroket in Bahasa Indonesia.
It is a well-known snack in Indonesia that is also known as jajan pasar (or wet market snack, although nowadays we can easily get this even at the malls or hotels or fancy restaurants). This savoury snack was inspired by the Dutch culinary because Indonesia was once occupied by the Dutch for more than three hundred years so many of our dishes are actually inspired by the Dutch culinary.
Croquette, risoles and pastel are three of my boy’s Indonesian traditional favourite snacks. I actually have shared all the recipes before, but I’m going to revise some of them one by one since I have been trying various recipes and techniques and found better ones. First, I’m going to start with revising my previous croquette recipes.
Well, actually there was nothing wrong with my previous recipes and it actually works well for most people, but I found out that for some people, the dough sometimes can be difficult to shape and can be easily broken apart when we’re not careful enough during the shaping, coating and frying process. It is also difficult and takes so much time to shape the dough one by one into the same and shape and size especially when I make the mashed potato not by deep-frying them but cooking them in boiling water. The dough will be very difficult to handle but I don’t like frying the potatoes since they will absorb too much oil, so I always choose either steam or boil them.
One day, I stumbled upon a video on Youtube of how to make a croquette by Pak Yongki Gunawan (a famous chef in Indonesia) and he showed the technique of how to make the dough that was easy to shape and can be freeze for months. He only showed the techniques and not the exact measurement or the complete recipe (you need to buy his book to know the details but I can’t find it in here), so I was just guessing and made my own experiment to find the right measurements. Thankfully it worked really well and I loved it and shaping the dough was so much easier for me.
In the video, he still fried the potatoes to make mashed potatoes, but I’ve tried boiling the potatoes and dried them in the air fryer (160 Celsius for 10 minutes) and it worked just perfectly fine. Basically, he taught us to combine mashed potatoes dough with pastry dough (without eggs) and the technique of how to easily shape the dough in a shorter time which I will share below.
For the filling, I’m still using my own old recipes from my mom and you can use chicken instead of beef, although originally, croquette uses beef as the main ingredient for the filling.
Ingredients:
For the filling:
- 3 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 large yellow onion, minced
- 5 garlic, minced
- 200 gr beef (I used chuck beef cut), minced
- 3 carrots, diced
- 2 handfuls of frozen green peas
- 4 tbsp sweet soy sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 50 ml of water
- 1 tsp all-purpose flour
- 8 green onions, minced
For the mashed potatoes:
- 800 gr potatoes, peeled and washed and cut into smaller parts
- 100 gr butter (preferably salted butter)
- 1 cup plain milk
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 nutmeg, grated
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp salt (or use more if you use unsalted butter)
- 1/2 tsp pepper
For coating:
- Beaten eggs
- Bread crumbs (I used Nestum Multigrain Cereal as a substitute for breadcrumbs), grind into fine crumbs
Method:
For the filling:
- Heat a wok with cooking oil and add onion and garlic. Stir fry until fragrant and onions are soft
- Add minced meat and stir fry until the meat is no longer red
- Add carrots and peas and season with sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce pepper. Bring to boil
- Add water and continue cooking until meat and carrots are soft
- Spread all-purpose flour evenly on top of the mixture to thicken the mixture (this will make it easier for you to add filling inside the croquette). Stir to combine and cook for another 2 minutes. The filling should be dry and not watery at this point
- Turn off the heat and add minced green onions. Stir to mix well and let cool in room temperature before using it as croquette filling
For the mashed potatoes:
- Combine butter and milk in a medium-size saucepan and stir until butter has completely melted in medium heat. Bring to a simmer and turn off the heat
- Add flour and mix with a spatula. Turn to medium heat and stir until flour is completely incorporated and a thick dough clumps into a ball (The flour has to be thoroughly cooked so I usually cook it for about 2 to 3 minutes). Turn off the heat and transfer the mixture to a large bowl
- Deep-fried the potatoes until golden brown
- Transfer the potatoes into a bowl and mash with a potato masher or pestle
- When the mashed potato is cooled enough, transfer to the bowl with the flour mixture
- Add egg, nutmeg powder, salt and pepper and mix really well using your hand (use a glove). Do not use a mixer or food processor
How to add filling, shape and deep fry:
- Weight the dough to 40 gr each (I made 28 balls)
- Flatten the dough and add 1 tbsp of the filling in the centre of the dough
- Roll the dough into a ball with the filling inside
- Prepare a small-sized plastic bag and a dough cutter (or a ruler)
- Place the dough with the filling inside in the middle of the plastic bag and fold the plastic bag into 2. Place the dough cutter in front of the dough
- Gently push the dough using the dough cutter until an oval shape is formed
- Coat each dough with egg then coat with bread crumbs and place in a covered container
- Refrigerate for at least 2 hours
- Deep fry until golden brown
- Serve warm with chilli sauce
You can freeze the remaining croquettes (without frying them) in an airtight container. They can last for about 2 months. Bring them to room temperature before deep-frying them. You can also lightly coat them with breadcrumbs before frying.
Making memories in every dish 