Receta de croquetas - Yum!

What's your favourite Spanish food? For us it’s quite difficult to just pick one, but a really popular dish in our house is croquetas.

Unlike English or French croquettes, Spanish croquetas are not potato filled, but rather, with a creamy bechamel or white sauce and a variety of other fillings like pollo (chicken), jamón (Spanish ham), bacalao (cod), espinacas (spinach), setas (mushrooms)... the choice is yours.

Traditionally, croquetas de pollo y jamón were the most common ones to find in bars and restaurants as tapas or appetizers, but these days you can find plenty of creativity inside a croqueta and find an incredible selection of fillings with different meats, fish, seafood, veg and even cheeses!

In many towns and cities there's a “ruta de la croqueta” where different bars and restaurants in an area offer a “croqueta speciality” and you pop in for a drink and a croqueta and move onto the next croqueta place!

And while we look forward to a few croquetas and a beer in a Spanish terraza, there’s nothing stopping us from enjoying them at home too. So, today I want to share with you a delicious recipe for croquetas de pollo y jamón which is a favourite in our house 😊

Ingredients (makes 30 croquetas approx.):

For the filling

200 gr chicken breast (cooked)

100 jamón (finely diced)

1 litre full fat milk

100 gr flour 

100 gr butter

Salt to taste

For the batter

Flour 

1 egg (whisked)

breadcrumbs

Sunflower oil to fry

Instructions:

1. Pan fry the chicken and season. Dice into small cubes and reserve.
2. In a different pan, melt the butter, add the flour and away from the flames, mix together until you get a very smooth paste (this step is very important to avoid lumpy bechamel!)
3. Slowly add around half of the milk to the mix and stir until it fully integrates with the butter and flour. Return to the hob, keep stirring and adding the rest of the milk until you get a smooth mix.
4. Add the chicken and jamón and continue to stir until the sauce is very creamy and thick (this is essential so the croquetas can be shaped easily once chilled and also they hold their shape when frying). Taste and add salt if needed, but a word of caution here as the jamón is naturally a bit salty.
5. Allow to cool, put in the fridge and leave overnight. The mixture needs to be refrigerated overnight so it is firm enough for you to shape into croquetas.
6. Bring the mixture out of the fridge, set a plate with a bit of flour, another plate with a whisked egg and a third one with plain breadcrumbs.
7. Shape the croquetas (I recommend you do it with two spoons to avoid getting your hands really messy). Coat the croquetas in flour, then egg and then breadcrumbs.
8. Deep fry in very hot oil until golden brown (I normally fry them in sunflower oil, but you can choose olive oil if you prefer)
9. Enjoy your croquetas!

Notes: 

• You can substitute Spanish jamón with Parma ham
• If you want a variation, you can leave the jamón out and increase to 300 gr cooked chicken breast instead. 

I’d love to hear how your croquetas turn out! And also, I'm planning on a video series covering popular Spanish dishes while learning Spanish, let me know if you have any favourites :)

Hasta pronto,

Cristina