Spanish Croqueta recipe

For those of you who have enjoyed all my talk about croquetas in my Jaialdi posts, and want to make your own, here’s the recipe I use.

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp flour
• Milk
• Nutmeg (optional)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 4 oz cured ham-jamón serrano or regular ham, chicken, turkey or cod)
• Breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• Olive oil
• Salt

Preparation:
In a saucepan, melt the butter and add five tbsp of flour.  When the mix begins to brown, slowly add milk, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to prevent lumps from forming.  Leave to cook slowly, adding milk from time to time.  Add a pinch of salt and nutmeg.  (If you don’t have nutmeg, it’s ok to skip this ingredient.)  Dice the ham, sauté in olive oil, and add to the pan.  Continue stirring until the sauce is cooked.

Pour the mix into a bowl and leave to cool for a few hours.  Once cold, take a lump of the mixture and roll in your hands creating a round or oval shaped ball.  Coat in breadcrumbs, dip in egg and roll again in breadcrumbs.

Traditional recipes call for frying the croquetas in hot oil.  However, I prefer to bake mine in the oven.

Best served hot.

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*Original recipe taken and adapted from Classic Tapas, Authentic Spanish recipes, Edara Ediciones, S.L., Cordoba, Spain.  Feb, 2003.