You may remember we reviewed DK's Family Kitchen Cookbook a little while ago. Last week we made Cheese Croquettes, which is one of the recipes from the book that had caught the Madhouse Mini-testers' eyes.
Cheese Croquettes
ingredients :
50g butter
190g plain flour
300ml whole milk
250g grated cheese
pinch of nutmeg, salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs, beaten
100g breadcrumbs
vegetable oil, for deep frying
It starts off as if you're making cheese sauce. Melt the butter, mix in 70g of the flour then, off the heat, whisk in the milk little by little.
Now, I had the first fail here - I didn't notice, until it was too late, that you weren't supposed to dump the whole lot of flour into the sauce at this point. Oops! It therefore went extra thick when I cooked it over a low heat for a few minutes, before stirring in the cheese and seasoning. Doing it properly, you should add a small amount (70g) of the flour now, then chill the sauce in the fridge for an hour before adding half of the rest of the flour and forming croquette shapes.
My second fail was that I hadn't noticed that this recipe called for 2 x 1 hour chilling (minimum) before cooking. I didn't have time to wait so mine only got 1/2 hour chilling, which is why they didn't hold their shape ! Tasting the mixture at this point, we decided this would be a fabulous sauce for cauliflower cheese or lasagne. You can also jazz it up by adding extra ingredients, if you wish - I added some finely chopped ham and spring onions, as well as some smoked paprika, garlic pepper and chives.
Normally, after chilling for the first hour, you roll your nicely formed croquettes in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs and chill them in the fridge for another hour.
After a couple of failed attempts, I just dropped dollops into the breadcrumbs, drizzled more breadcrumbs over the top then fried them in oil.
They may not have ended up as perfectly formed croquettes, as I didn't chill them for long enough prior to cooking, but they tasted lovely. This would also be a great way of using up leftovers, adding in cooked vegetables, bolognese sauce, leftover tuna and sweetcorn from sandwiches, or whatever else you may have in the fridge that needs using up. Sounds like the perfect #LoveFoodHateWaste recipe.
This recipe fits in nicely with this month's Friday Foodie round-up with the theme of CHEESE
Other blogposts you may be interested in :
My partner would absolutely love them, he is the cheese fan in our partnership and the way he talks about potato croquettes, well you would think it was a lost love rather than food. I'm a bit iffy with cheese but I would still love to give these a go, I might even add some cauliflower too!
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Beauty, Miscellany
Cheryl! i love this recipe and how easy it is. thank you for linking up with #FridayFoodie xx pinned and stumbled
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