zanzjan | Cooking in 2011: #5

Recipe 5 of 20: Croquetas de Huevos
(see Resolution explanation here)

The cookbook: Tapas Tomás García, Barnes & Noble, 2006
The recipe: Croquetas de Huevos, pg. 40
Have I ever cooked anything out of it before? No.

a.k.a Egg Fritters

Prep was a ton of work on this one, split across two days. (Sure I skimmed the recipe instructions before starting it. Did I see the "let cool overnight" bit ahead of time? Not so much!) I'm not really keen on having gooey raw egg on my hands, but rolling the little things around in breadcrumbs was kind of fun.

See, here's my prep station:

And here they are with their coating of breadcrumbs (I used panko) prior to Death By Deep-Fryer:

I didn't really change anything with the recipe, but would definitely do so if I were to make it again. The interior is made of chopped-up hard-boiled egg with a flour mixture to bind it all together, but even deep-frying them to the point where they looked like they'd been through nuclear war wasn't enough to turn the flour stuff into anything more than sludge. Either the egg to flour stuff ratio needs to be shifted substantially towards the egg, or some other binding agent needs to be used. Or maybe none; it occurred to me that making a typical egg salad batch would probably work as well.

Still, even texturally sludgy, they were reasonably tasty. I could have gone heavier on the black pepper, and maybe tossed some garlic salt in there too. It's enough work that I don't see myself making these again unless I was taking them to some sort of party, and I don't see myself doing that until I've solved the sludginess issue, so I don't know if there'll be a repeat here.

OTOH, Eldest Child, She Who Is Also The Pickiest Eater On The Planet, ate more than half of them. That alone is reason to try again.

I was originally going to cook 3 recipes out of this same cookbook, but my ambition got ahead of me. May do so anyhow, since I've got the ingredients, but won't count it here.

The finished result: