Duston Barto and Aishah Alian :

This is a great item to make for breakfast, snack time, iftar, sahur, even great as a supper dish paired with vegetables and rice.  At our home we love to make a large batch of these and refrigerate as they will keep for a few days after being prepared before frying them.

Ingredients:

1.8 pounds of potato

4 medium-sized hard-boiled eggs or 1 can of quail eggs (we prefer using quail eggs since the flavor is a bit richer and it’s easier)

200 grams (1/2lb)  ground meat of your choice

1 large white onion

2 tablespoons of butter

1 liter cooking oil for deep frying

Salt and ground black pepper for seasoning

Ground nutmeg for seasoning

Red pepper flakes, turmeric, oregano, soy sauce and paprika (optional seasonings)

2 beaten eggs for coating

Flour for coating

Panko (bread crumbs) for coating

2 tablespoons of ketchup and 3 tablespoons of tonkatsu sauce for dipping.

Directions:

1.Wash and peel the potatoes, then cut them in cubes about an inch or two in size.

2.Rinse thoroughly to remove starch. You will notice this when water turns clear.

3.Put washed potatoes in a pot and cover the potatoes with water, bring to a boil.

4.Mince onions. (you can also add a few cloves of minced garlic)

5.In a frying pan, saute onions with the butter until soft, then add ground meat and cook until done. Sprinkle salt, black pepper and nutmeg to the meat. Feel free to add any other spices you enjoy to the meat at this point, just not anything that is chunky as it will make the balls harder to form later on

6.Turn off heat and set aside meat. 7.Check potatoes with a fork, if done then drain the water but do not use a strainer.  Put potatoes back on the stove for few seconds to remove excess water. Set aside. 8.Peel the hardboiled eggs. (skip if using quail eggs) Scoop out egg yolks and mix into the boiled potatoes. (if using quail eggs just open the can, drain the liquid, then pour the eggs into the potatoes at this point) 9.Mash the potatoes and egg yolks while hot.

10.Chop egg whites and mix into mashed potatoes. (see why quail eggs is easier?) 11.Add the cooked meat into the mashed potatoes.

12.Mix all ingredients together until the mixture is consistent; then press the mixture down into the pot to compress the mixture as much as possible.

13.As soon as it is cool enough to handle, scoop out croquette mixture approximately the size of a small egg and form into a ball.  We suggest heavily coating your hands with flour before doing this or the potato mixture will stick to your hands 14.Lightly coat each ball with flour by rolling it on a floured baking pan. 15.Dip each floured ball into the two beaten eggs.

16.Put panko (bread crumbs) into a small deep bowl and coat each croquette generously by simply rolling the bowl.

17.Line the croquettes in a baking pan and cover with a plastic cling wrap.

18.Put croquettes in the refrigerator to cool for 30 minutes. You can also store them in the refrigerator for a maximum of two days.

19.Heat cooking oil to 340 degrees Fahrenheit (170 degrees Celsius) in a deep pot or deep fryer.

20.Fry croquettes until golden brown. Lay them on a wire rack to allow excess oil to drip. If you do not have a wire rack, you can use paper towels instead to absorb the excess oil.

21.Mix ketchup and tonkatsu sauce for dipping. You can purchase tonkatsu sauce in Asian specialty stores. If you cannot find tonkatsu sauce, you may also use barbecue sauce.

22.Arrange croquettes on a plate. Serve with vegetables of your choice.