The One About the Korokke

Korrokke is Japanese deep-fried meat and potato croquettes.  It’s a simple and relatively fast dish to whip up and is good eaten on its own or, as I just did when I served it for dinner recently, with mounds of hot rice.  Carb overload, I know.

Plate them in their golden brown glory and serve with katsu dipping sauce and you’ve got a meal that tastes like heaven!

Ingredients:

Makes 6-8 flat patties

3 large potatoes (or 4 medium ones)

2 tablespoons butter (I don’t scrimp on butter!)

salt and pepper

300 grams ground beef (I used lean ground beef)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 medium onion, chopped

Flour

1 egg

Panko breadcrumbs

Tonkatsu sauce

Directions:

1. Peel potatoes and slice into small chunks.  Place potatoes in a pot of water and bring to a boil or until spuds are fork-tender.

2. Drain the potatoes and mash them with a fork.  While the mashed potatoes are hot, flavor them with butter, salt, and pepper.  Mix well.  Set aside to cool.

3.  Heat up a pan with oil.  Saute the onions and garlic.  When the onions are translucent and the heady aroma of garlic starts to fill the air (do not brown the garlic), add the ground beef and cook until brown.  Season with salt and pepper.  Set aside to cool.

4.  When both potatoes and beef are cool enough to handle, add the browned beef to the mashed potatoes and mix well.  At this point, you can add an egg to bind everything together.  I didn’t, though, because I found the mixture good enough to handle as it is.

5.  Prepare flour, beaten egg, and breadcrumbs in separate shallow bowls.  Form beef-potato mixture into flat patties.  Dredge the patties in the flour, dip in the egg, and cover with breadcrumbs.

6.  Deep-fry the korroke.

7.  Serve hot with tonkatsu sauce (easiest recipe:  3 parts ketchup and 1 part Worcestershire sauce).