Freshly fried and decorated eggplant croquettes :-)
A Philipin girlfriend wanted to know how to make croquettes and bitterballen. And you may want to know that too. Just some explanation. The thick ragout we need to make is called salpicon. That term comes from Spanish and means as much as mishmash. We make ragout and salpicon from butter, flour and a liquid. By using less liquid, the ragout becomes thicker and is suitable for making croquettes and bitterballen. That's the salpicon. For croquettes and bitterballen, the mass must be fairly fine, very large pieces will not work, because then things will fall apart. So don't make the filling too coarse. The filling can consist of anything, such as (stew) meat, fish, shrimps, mushrooms and in this case aubergines. The real secret of croquettes is of course the spices. Finally, don't make them too big and roll them into an oval shape.
Ingredients (6 small croquettes):
Half an eggplant
½ onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic very finely chopped
½ tsp cumin powder
½ tsp coriander powder
1 tsp harissa
¼ mushroom stock cube crumbled
grinded pepper
20 ml white wine
12 gr butter
15 grams of flour
80 ml of milk
1 tbsp finely chopped coriander
- Topping, just mix all -
4 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp Ras el Hanout
½ tbsp lemon juice
-
Flour, egg white & breadcrumbs (panko)
Preparation:
Cut the eggplant into very small dice and sprinkle with some salt. Drain in a colander. Pat them dry and fry the cubes in generously hot oil until brown, finally add the onion, garlic and herbs. Deglaze with the wine and turn off the heat. Taste again and adjust to your taste with some extra herbs and/or salt.
Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Stir in the flour and when it has been absorbed by the butter, half the milk. Stir continuously so that all the milk is absorbed and let the flour cook a little. Then mix in the rest of the milk and eggplant mixture. Heat through and through and let the mass thicken into a thick sauce. Stir and then the coriander and transfer to a bowl with a layer thickness of about two centimeters. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool thoroughly in the refrigerator.
Form the croquettes (35-40 grams) with your hands and lay them on a plate. Cool in the fridge for another hour. They better be well chilled for the next step. Take them from the fridge and dip/roll them in the flour, then in the beaten egg white and finally in the breadcrumbs, so that they are completely covered. Deep-fry in oil at 180˚C for about 3 minutes until golden brown. Serve with the Ras al Hanout mayonnaise and sprinkled with some dried red pepper flakes.
The croquettes in their form, but not yet treated with the bredcrumbs