Day 11: Recipe - Turkey corquetas

dracavia Another one of your tasty recipe recommendations, perhaps something themed to the winter season (eg comfort food, seasonal produce, etc)

This is actually a Christmas leftover recipe, but it was so nice that it would be lovely made with leftover chicken or something like that at any time of year.

Image from the Morrisons website

The original recipe comes from Morrisons: Turkey croquetas with cranberry dipping sauce and I am sure that some people would like them just as they say, but, of course, I didn't :). I don't like parsley and I found the nutmeg on its own far too bland, hence I added curry - however, only a little because I wanted a hint not a hit and for the turkey flavour to still come through.

Ingredients

• 60g/0.5stick butter
• 1/2 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 140g/0.5cup plain flour
• 500ml/2 cups milk, heated
• pinch ground nutmeg
• pinch mild curry powder
• pinch of dried thyme
• salt and pepper
• 125g/1cup leftover cooked turkey, shredded
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 150g panko (Japanese style) breadcrumbs (They are much crunchier and airier than normal breadcrumbs and give a lovely texture so I'm not sure how to convert to cups - I used a whole packet.)
• vegetable oil, for frying

Instructions

1. Put the butter in a pan and melt it.
2. Make sure the heat is not too high and add the onions and sweat down until very soft.
3. Turn the heat right down and stir in 60g (approx 0.5 cup) of the flour. Cook gently for 8 mins, stirring constantly until the flour and onion mixture is pale golden.
4. Add a little of the heated milk and whisk in and repeat this until the mixture is a smooth paste. DO NOT add too much milk at a time or it will be difficult to combine.
5. Add the nutmeg, curry powder, dried thyme and salt and pepper to your taste and cook over a low heat for about 20 mins. (You could use any herbs you fancy at this point as long as it won't completely overwhelm the turkey - fresh coriander instead of the parsley in the original recipe would probably be good - I just don't like parsley).
6. Take off the heat, add the turkey and test for seasoning.
7. Put the mixture into a shallow dish and press cling film (saran wrap) onto the surface to prevent a skin forming. Then pop it in the fridge to cool and set up for at least an hour.
8. Now this is where the original recipe really fell down for me - my mixture just would not set enough to be handled. Hence I froze it overnight, then put it in the fridge to start defrosting and went on to the next bit while it was still solid, but able to be shaped.
9. Put the remaining flour in a shallow bowl and season lightly, the eggs in a second and the breadcrumbs in a third.
10. Form the turkey mixture into 12 balls. This is very messy :).
11. Dip each ball in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs and make sure it is completely covered.
12. Return the balls to the fridge to firm up again.
13. Heat your oil to 180C (the same temp you would cook fried chicken). You can use a deep fryer or a pan shallow filled with oil, but you will need quite a lot of oil. Deep fry each croquetas until cooked all the way through (if you used the frozen technique, this might take a little longer than if they were just fridge cold) - about 2-3 mins until golden brown. The best way is to cook one and test it to see how long it takes before it is hot in the middle.

You can make the cranberry and chilli dipping sauce from the original recipe to go with them if you like, but they go well with anything fruity, like red current, or mango chutney etc.