Hello my dear lovely readers, this morning I woke up to another gloomy day and here’s me wishing that I am tucked in bed, with huge mug of hot chocolate. But hey, after all life is about winter and summer. So I have decided I will just deal with it and get on with the day to day chores. But that’s easier said than done. Weather or weather related topics rather, are hard to run away from. We don’t have a way out apart from dragging our gloomy selves to work in the freezing cold, greet the other gloomy faced colleagues and talk about how bad it is outside.
The only thing that cheers our sick faces is of course piping hot deep fried food! It is almost customary in India to make something hot, spicy and crispy when it rains. Onions bajis are the most favoured on these occasions. I wanted to make something similar and so gawked at all the deep fried recipes available and was amazed of the ongoing croquettes craze going on all over. It was on the fine dining menus, the café menus and on almost all the food blogs. Now, my blogger instinct immediately ordered me to make some. This is of course way back during Halloween last year …err yes, I do leave my posts pending for months. If you have to ask me , this time I will blame it on a really busy work schedule, travelling to meet clients and working in their strange offices and of course a holiday to India which put a beautiful end to the year. And since I have started blabbering, a quick one about the strange offices I mentioned earlier. I said strange because, A. though I have worked with them from our office in London, I have never met anyone there, so it was always a weird ‘guess the face from the voice’ sought game on all the time. And B. there used to be an annoying alarm that would go off in regular intervals which I didn’t have a clue what it was about. Later I was told that the siren was to remind employees to take a coffee break, lunch break etc….how cool is that? Totally different from my big boss back in London office who I definitely think has a spreadsheet to keep record of our coffee and toilet breaks.
OK, so we were talking about me thinking about making some croquettes just after Halloween and for obvious reasons I had loads of pumpkin in the fridge. I have seem pumpkin croquette recipes on the web and it was just that day when all my creative juices were on a high and I whipped up a combination of Pumpkin, Courgette and Cream Cheese croquettes. Trust me, I loved it and was so proud of it. With that cream cheese texture and the sweetness of pumpkin, they are a melt in the mouth. They are also very easy to make (well, apart from the grating bit). The croquettes can be made till the last stage and frozen for those cosy evenings or unexpected visitors.
Ingredients:
1 Cup grated Pumpkin
1 ½ Cup grated Courgette
150grams Cream Cheese
1 Tsp Cumin powder
1 Tsp Ginger powder
1 Egg
1 Cup breadcrumbs Seasoned
Method:
Mix the grated pumpkin and courgette. Try to use fresh ones, and squeeze all the moisture out of the pumpkin and courgette. Add the cumin powder and the ginger powder. Add the cream cheese and season well. Now depending on the mixture, if you feel it is a bit runny to make the shapes, feel free add any binding agent like soft white bread or corn flour. Shape the croquette using your palm. Do use some oil on your hands so the mixture doesn’t stick to your hands and makes shaping the croquettes easier.
Dip the croquettes in beaten egg and then generously toss them in breadcrumbs.
Deep fry them in hot vegetable oil until golden brown and serve with any sauce.
To Freeze:
Make the croquettes and place them in the fridge for at least one hour before freezing so they will hold their shape together.
Variations:
- Add some crushed Chillies for some fiery treat!
- You can use some boiled peas in them for extra texture
- Add a herb if you like that fresh flavour
- Milk or just plain flour can be substituted to egg to coat the croquettes with breadcrumbs
Do let me know if tried these !!
Mummy & Me 