Ham and chicken croquettes

Today Miriam, author of The Winter Guest , does not bring a recipe to prepare delicious croquettes at home. I encourage you to prepare them, with their tips and tricks they will undoubtedly be perfect for you.

Croquettes are a classic that adults and children alike like and these chicken and ham croquettes are no exception; It is rare to find a specimen that does not like them, although there has to be everything…

As they are a somewhat laborious dish, there are not so many people left willing to sweat the fat drop preparing the dough and molding the croquettes one by one. Those of us who still dare with them are highly valued, ahem.

Therefore, any help in the croquetil process is welcome. This is where a croquette maker like the Millecroquettes comes in, which speeds up the shaping or molding by being able to form the dough into three long cylinders with one stroke of the lever: divide the molding time by three. Or almost. In addition to getting homogeneous and well-formed croquettes, of course.

The croquettes are the quintessential dish of use , they admit a great variety of stumbling blocks. In less warm times than this I use the chicken or the hen from the stew to add them to the croquettes. In this case I have also added cooked ham to give it another additional touch of flavor. The combination is great and the kids love it.

Millecroquettes croquette maker , Tokyo Design textured plate and Mediterránea glasses

Ingredients

• 1.1 liters of whole milk
• 2 tbsp. of butter
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 120g of plain flour
• A touch of nutmeg
• 150g of cooked chicken (they can be the remains of a roast, a stew, etc.)
• 100 g of cooked ham
• Salt to taste
• Breadcrumbs and beaten egg for coating
• Abundant olive oil for frying

Elaboration

1. In a large skillet , melt the butter and add the oil.
2. When the butter bubbles, add the flour and stir well with a wooden spoon, until we obtain a sandy mixture.
3. We toast this mixture for 3-4 minutes to remove the raw flavor from the flour and add half of the milk.
4. Stir well, breaking up all the lumps. As soon as it is a little bound and has thickened, we add more milk without stopping stirring, until we add it all.
5. If we have any lumps, we put an arm blender and beat the mixture a little.
6. We flavor with nutmeg.
7. We continue cooking this thick béchamel so that it thickens more. The exact point of thickness is not easy to catch when one starts in the science of croquettes, in theory a mass of croquettes at its point should begin to detach from the wall of the pan .
8. When the dough is almost ready, we finely chop the chicken and ham and add them, distributing well.
9. We salt and taste the seasoning, since the ham also provides some salt. We rectify if necessary, we put out the fire and we pour the mass in a flat container so that it cools before. So that it does not form a hard skin, we cover it with plastic or paint it with butter. Let it cool completely and, if we have time, it is better to leave it overnight in the fridge so that it settles well.
10. To form the croquettes, we put half of the dough that we have prepared in the Millecroquettes and place the tray with wheels under the appliance, with the end almost under the tubes. I prefer to sprinkle this tray with breadcrumbs so nothing sticks. We can also grease it with oil.
11. We lower the lid with the lever of the machine, using some force to make the dough cylinders come out. The dough itself advances the tray until it occupies the entire length. We cut the cylinders flush with the tubes of the machine, we deposit them on a plate full of breadcrumbs and we proceed to cut them into portions of the size that we want. Although we can also cut the dough on top of the tray with the help of the equidistant marks it has.
12. We proceed in the same way with the remaining half of the dough. In two batches we have formed all the croquettes.
13. Coat well in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg and finally again in breadcrumbs. We are placing the croquettes well battered on a tray.
14. To fry them, heat abundant oil, which is capable of covering them, in a small frying pan or stainless steel saucepan , to about 176°-179°. Yes, I measure the temperature with a thermometer at all times, because a proper frying temperature helps prevent the croquettes from exploding.

Mediterranean cups and glasses and Textured plate from Tokyo Design Studio

Tips for making homemade croquettes perfect

Apart from carefully forming and coating the croquettes, the following issues must be taken into account:

1. Better to fry in a good olive oil and without exceeding 180 ° because otherwise it begins to burn.
2. Never put the croquettes in before the oil has reached its cruising temperature . Yes, I'm a kitchen thermometer freak, but once you get used to checking temperatures there's no guessing: you're always on the safe side.
3. I like very fine breadcrumbs. With a good blender at home you can make breadcrumbs to taste.
4. So that the croquettes do not explode, it is essential:
   1. Make a dough that is firm enough, but that doesn't break a tooth. I know, this is not trivial, it takes practice.
   2. A suitable temperature of the frying oil , as I have indicated before.
   3. To be sure, I let the croquettes dry out a bit on a pastry rack after forming them. The fact that the batter is a little firm helps to retain the pasta inside. No, it's not enough because I do it with fine breadcrumbs, as I said before.

You ran out of excuses for not making croquettes. With this article you have everything you need and you are going to love these chicken and ham croquettes .