Japanese Potato Croquette Korokke Curry
"Authentic" Potato Croquettes usually start with plain whole potatoes. This recipe starts with about two cups of leftover mashed potatoes, which obviously will have some butter, milk/cream and salt. If your mashed potatoes are exceedingly creamy, i.e. "runny," the croquettes will not hold together very well, so you may want to heat the mashed potatoes slowly first in a frying pan to dehydrate them a little.
If the leftover mashed potatoes have other things in them, you are on your own with respect to how they will taste. I suspect bacon will be fine since these have ground beef, and wasabi will just go with the whole "Japanese" theme. However, if you got all crazy and mixed blue cheese into your mashed potatoes, first I salute you for such bravery at he Thanksgiving dinner table and second, I recommend you make the croquettes with leftover plain mashed potatoes next year.
Japanese Potato Croquette Korokke Ingredients
2 cups leftover plain (butter, milk/cream, and salt are fine) mashed potatoes:
1 tablespoon cooking oil
¼ lb ground beef
½ onion, finely chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 large egg, lightly beaten
salt pepper to taste
flour and panko, about half cup each
frying oil
½ package Japanese curry
Japanese Potato Croquette Korokke Directions
Heat cooking oil in large frying pan over medium heat and saute ground beef and chopped onions. When beef and onions are about halfway cooked, add minced garlic and cook until ground beef is fully cooked. Drain excess fat/oil from ground beef mixture. Add mashed potatoes to frying pan to heat (but not cook).
Remove mashed potatoes/ground beef mixture to a bowl, season with salt and pepper and cool until you can handle it.
Scoop out about about a half cup of the potato mixture and shape into an oval disc about ½-¾" thick. You should get 4-5 discs.
Carefully dredge each disc with flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.
Heat about ½" of oil in frying pan over medium heat. Fry croquettes on each side until golden brown, about a minute on each side. Drain croquettes of oil on paper towels.
Prepare Curry Sauce according to package directions and add whatever cooked vegetables you like (I happened to have frozen peas and carrots). You can also make Japanese curry from scratch, but damn, that is a lot of effort for leftover mashed potatoes.
Serve croquettes with curry on steamed rice.
Kevin H says
You need to get your mom a kimchi fridge. And you like east coast rap? Nice.
Nikole Sumner says
I love great food and I love leftovers! Very well put in this blog. I use a caterer for my parties so I am ensured of great tasting food as well as some great leftovers. In San Francisco I use Componere Fine Catering. If anyone wants to check them out - http://componerefinecatering.com
Amy Blogs Chow says
Hate thinly veiled press releases.
Sarah J. Gim says
kevin: i am tickled that you picked up the reference. sometimes i wonder if I am too deeply stuck in my own head...
nikole: thanks for the reference!
amy: sent you an email...
Craig says
There used to be a place in Little Tokyo in Honda Plaza that served potato croquettes, squid and beer, lots of beer.
Its gone now, replaced by a Hawaiian food restaurant.
But you will want to go to Sushi-Gen anyway. :)
Sarah J. Gim says
Craig: And for curry, out on the town, I can go to either Hurry Curry or Curry House, both of which are just down the street from me. I think there's another place nearby that also does curry....going to have to find out what it is...
Rach says
I like all the things you have down the left hand side of the page there.
and never mind that I hate potato as well as cheesecake, still I want to RSS your blog. Maybe one day soon you'll cook something I like!
but dammit! why can't I get this blog to RSS? I'm using Google - any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Sarah J. Gim says
Rach: The Delicious Life RSS feed is managed by feedburner, and you should be able to access it on the "subscribe" link at the upper right hand corner of this page. It opens the feed and should just ask you which reader you want to use in a drop down. If the link at the top doesn't work, this is the feed'a address:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/thedeliciouslife
Let me know is you have trouble. And I'm honored that you want to subscribe :)
Lea of Little Rock Wedding says
I love this food.. This blog is well written. I will used this in my catering services in Little Rock..
Amy Blogs Chow says
Oh dear. Sarah - my comment was not directed at your immensely entertaining Thanksgiving leftovers and delicious-sounding croquette recipe. I was referring to Commenter #2 Ms. Nikole Sumner's out-of-context comment about leftovers courtesy of a catering company. Sorry I did not specify earlier!
michelle says
This looks great!! But any way I can make these sans meat?
Sarah J. Gim says
Amy: no worries :)
Michelle: Of course you can make the croquettes without the meat! I would think that leaving ground beef out would actually make it much easier to shape the croquettes and have them hold up when frying.
Diana says
One of my favorite carb on carb combinations is potato on pizza. With rosemary, salt and white sauce, no less.
But I digress...
I loathe leftovers in most forms (I fear bacteria, and I don't like to eat things that taste dried out and/or stale from refrigeration). I will make exceptions, however, when I'm cooking enough for two dinners in a row, or when there is leftover Thanksgiving turkey. That, my friend, goes directly on a French baguette and is subsequently topped off with leftover cranberry sauce.
And now you know. Aren't you glad?
Sarah J. Gim says
Diana: Potato on pizza! When I first moved to LA and tried CPK and saw the Rosemary Chicken POTATO pizza, I kind of wondered what I was thinking moving to LA (coming from, you know, Ohio). The chicken I could understand, but I was really weirded out by the potato.
Now, naturally, I love it.
deana (lostpastremembered) says
I am in awe of the photo... how do you make rice and gravy look sexy?
It sounded delicious to boot! Thanks for the inspiration for leftovers and photos!