Garnalenkroketten (Dutch Shrimp Croquettes)

The croquette is a very typical dutch snack, we eat about 18 croquettes per person per year. Although those are mainly beef croquettes, this version with shrimps is more popular in Belgium. The principle is very simple: you make a roux and add cooked shrimp (or meat or whatever). You add gelatin as a trick to help the roux get firm in the fridge, you won’t taste it in the finished product. Mold croquettes in your hands, dust with cornflour, roll in egg-white and cover with breadcrumbs, deep-fry and that’s it! In this recipe it’s really worthwhile to use the typically dutch brown shrimp.

INGREDIENTS
4 gram gelatin sheets
90 gram butter
120 gram flour
300 gram chicken stock
500 gram peeled brown shrimp
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of garlic powder
salt
pepper

breadcrumbs
egg-white
oil for deep-frying

MAKING THE ROUX
Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for about 5 minutes.
Slowly melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
When butter has melted, add all flour at once.
Stir with a rubber spatula.
(using a whisk would release the starch, making it sweet)
Heat the mixture for about 3 minutes or until you feel the rawness of the flour is gone. This is an important step, if you don’t cook it enough the croquette will taste of flour, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Gradually add the (cold) stock, stir and bring to the boil.
(do stir well, it will release gluten for optimal “binding”)
Squeeze the soaked gelatin and stir into the mixture.
Add cayenne, garlic powder, salt and pepper and let the mixture cool a little.
Then carefully mix in the shrimp. Don’t stir too much now.
Taste the mixture and add salt, pepper, etc if needed.
Line a baking tray with cling-foil, add the mixture in a layer of about 3 cm thick, cover with clingfilm (clingfilm touching the mixture), let it cool (as quickly as possible) and transfer to your fridge. Ideally, you let the mixture rest for a day to let the flavors “mix and marry”.

MAKING THE CROQUETTES
Cut the mixture already in the shape of croquettes. Pick up the now square croquettes one by one and mold in your hands into a nice, round croquettes.
Dust them with (corn)flour.
Roll in beaten egg-white.
Roll in breadcrumbs.
Deep-fry for about 2-3 minutes at 180°C.
(or about 5 minutes when frozen)

RECIPE SOURCE
Het Groot Culinair Croquetten Kookboek van Edwin Kats

NOTES
(mainly for my own reference)

• I used bapao flour, which is low in gluten. I’m not even sure if it’s “better or worse” to use, normally you’d use all purpose flour.
• I was short on stock, so I used some dry white wine too. (about 100ml?)
• I added 2 teaspoons of freeze dried yuzu and some chopped parsley. Normally you’d just squeeze some lemonjuice over he shrimps.
• I used panko, Japanese breadcrumbs. And I coated the croquettes twice, so adding another step of rolling in eggwhite and panko again.
• I froze them after I dusted them in cornflour. You could also freeze them including the panko, but you get a much nice result when you roll them in panko just before deepfrying.

VARIATIONS
with cheese, left-over “man & wife tongue” or braised beef:

Grilled Eggplant Salad

Together with Fish frangrant eggplant and Thai coconut scented eggplant this is my favorite eggplant recipe. Especially in summer. It’s pretty simple, it’s just a bit of work to grill all the eggplant slices if you just have the one griddle pan. But if you’re a little bit practical, you can do this during the preparation of the other dishes. Anyway, I think it’s totally worth the trouble!

RECIPE
for 2-4 person

600g Asian eggplants (the thinner kind)
5-8 T nice vegetable oil
1 T lime juice
½ clove of garlic, grated
1 tiny pinch of ground cumin
2 spring onions, chopped
5 T cilantro, chopped
fresh chili, chopped (optional, not in this photo)
salt
pepper

Slice the eggplants into thin (2mm) slices. Preferably with a mandoline slicer. Grill them (in batches) in a griddle pan or on the bbq. Don’t use any oil.

Make the vinaigrette/dressing with all other ingredients and put in a salad bowl. Taste and adjust it. Little bit more salt, lime juice, etc

Add the grilled slices of eggplant to the bowl and mix with the vinaigrette. When grilling in batches, keep adding every warm batch into the bowl and mix it with the rest so it can soak up the vinaigrette. Eat warm or luke warm

Melon, strawberry and chili flakes salad

Another one of my most favorite salads. Pretty simple, but pretty good. Perfect for a summer’s day and my entry for the dutch foodblogevent which theme is strawberries!

For the salad:
1 melon
250g strawberries
1 banana (optional)

For the dressing:
50 ml ginger syrup
10 ml white balsamic vinegar
pinch of chili flakes (just enough to give it a subtle kick)

That’s it!

Tomato and Avocado Salad

One of my favorite if not most favorite salads. I eat it with steak or fish or just about everything. Make sure the avocado is nice and soft and the tomatoes have as much flavor as possible.

For the salad:
200g (cherry) tomatoes
1 avocado
1/2 red onion
3 T chopped coriander

For the dressing:
juice of 1 lime
1 T light soysauce
1 T fishsauce
1 T olive oil (optional)
1 t sugar

Mix the ingredients for the dressing in a salad bowl. Taste and adjust if necessary. Dice the onion pretty finely, the cilantro roughly, add to the bowl and mix. Cut the tomatoes and avocado in smaller but similar pieces and add to the bowl. You might want to mix everything without the avocado first, to keep it neater.

Steamed Oysters with black beans

I used to think you should only eat oysters plain and raw. Maybe with a pinch of chopped shallot and a few drops of red rice vinegar, but nothing more. This however, was before I knew about the Chinese way of eating oysters: steamed with little black beans and a nice soy sauce dressing. I couldn’t choose anymore what my favorite is, I love them both ways. Recipe for a dozen oysters:


For the sauce, mix together:
1 T light soy sauce
1 T Shaoxing rice wine
1 T clear rice vinegar
2 T water (or some nice chicken stock if you have)
1½ t sugar
2 t sesame oil

Rinse a tablespoon of fermented black beans (tausi) and set aside.

Scrub the oysters if they’re still sandy. Open them, cut the oyster loose, but leave them in the half shell. Arrange them an a plate that will fit in your steamer. For stability you could take some tinfoil and mould them into little circles on which you strongly put the oysters. Put about 5 little black beans on each oyster, then pour it with the sauce and steam for about 3-5 minutes until they’re warm and firm up a little, but aren’t completely cooked. Sprinkle with some finely chopped spring onion and serve.

NB Dit recept kun je ook in het Nederlands lezen op: Aziatische-ingrediënten.nl

Piperade with smoked peppers

I don’t know why bell peppers (paprika’s in dutch) hardly ever seem to play the leading role in (my) recipes, but in this Spanish inspired recipe they do. It’s not the quickest recipe, but it is easy and you can do most of it well in advance and pop it in the oven just before serving. Normally I make 1 or 2 medium size ovendishes, but today I used tiny little pots and quail eggs instead of chicken eggs. So it wasn’t just delicious, it looked cute too.

 

RECIPE

600g pointed, red peppers (any color or size will do)
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 dl passata
handful of basil, sliced
2 eggs
4 t cream
pinch cayenne pepper

Wash the peppers. Cut off the head and slice lengthwise in half.
If you have a stovetop smoker, smoke the peppers (skin sides up) for about 10-15 minutes. But don’t worry, without smoking them the result will be worthwhile too. Or maybe you could add some Spanish smoked paprika.
Take peppers out and slice in 5mm thin slices.
Slowly saute the onion and garlic in some oil for about 5 minutes until translucent.
Add the sliced peppers and saute for another 5-10 minutes.
Add the passata, season with salt & pepper (or chickenstock powder) and simmer for 5 minutes.
Divide the mixture in 1 or 2 oven dishes.
Push a hole/ditch in the middle and carefully break an egg in it.
Add 1 or 2 teaspoons of cream and a dash of cayennepepper.
Put in a 180°C oven for about 12-15 minutes.
If the mixture was prepared before and cold I would heat it up (in the oven) before adding the egg. But that’s because I like my egg to be runny.

Serve with bread or pasta.

Filet Américain

Different from what the name suggests, this is a very typical dutch sandwich spread. I know that in France and Belgium they mean something else with “filet américain”, something the rest of the world calls “steak tartare”, but I’m dutch and this is what dutch people call filet américain. When I was young this was a luxurious treat for special days, nowadays it’s a cheap, day-to-day spread from the supermarket. Their recipe “degraded” so much over the years I decided to start making my own. After all, it’s dead simple, anybody with a blender can do it. I like it with finely chopped raw onions on top and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Spread on a sandwich or going back to the seventies and spread it on some celery sticks!


RECIPE

225 gr lean beef
3 T kewpie mayonnaise
2 t mustard
1 t paprika powder
½ t salt
½ t ground black pepper
⅛ t curry powder
pinch of cayenne-pepper
10 drops of Worcestershire sauce

Dice the beef and add with all other ingredients to your blender. Blend for quite some time, it really has to become a smooth paste. Taste it and see if you need to add some more spices or salt. Eat the same day, I wouldn’t keep it for longer than 24 hours. Refrigerated of course.

Any lean beef will do. You just don’t want any strings of fat in it because that won’t blend. It doesn’t need to be the most expensive cut, flank steak (bavette) will do just fine. I recommend Kewpie mayonnaise because it’s nice and sour. You can use raw egg yolks instead or a sweeter brand of mayonnaise, but then you might want to add some lemonjuice or vinegar. I use wholegrain mustard from Limburg and “Kerry Djawa” currypowder.