[Sca-cooks] Cuban ham croquettes

[ysabeau]

I wouldn't think they would use cornmeal as a binder. 
Traditionally, cuban bread crumbs are used. Cubans are very proud 
of their bread. I'm not really sure what the difference is between 
Cuban bread and French besides shape. I haven't done an in depth 
analysis of the recipes though.

I would love to find a recipe for "Deviled Crabs". I've only found 
them in restaurants in Ybor City. They are spiced/seasoned crab 
meat that is then encased in a dough that I'm pretty sure includes 
Cuban bread crumbs as a binder and then rolled in Cuban bread 
crumbs and deep fried. They end up looking vaguely like large 
Scotch Eggs in size and shape. However, they are really divine and 
definitely not for anyone on a diet. 

Ysabeau

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" 
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 16:28:43 -0400

>
>On Sep 13, 2006, at 4:02 PM, Christiane wrote:
>
>> Between the afternoon and evening viewings for my uncle on 
Monday,  
>> we went back to my aunt's house where the Cuban contingent of 
the  
>> family had provided a ton of food. Besides very tasty black 
beans  
>> and rice, roast pork, and chicken, there were fried pieces of  
>> "black" plaintains, and something I had never had before, the  
>> infamous Cuban ham croquettes. Simply, they seemed to be ground 
ham  
>> with a binder of cornmeal, made into little fat cigar shapes 
and  
>> deep-fried. They were really, really good, at least to me, but 
I am  
>> told even better when made with ground roast pork.
>>
>> Anybody have a recipe? Tooling around online so far has not 
yielded  
>> one. My husband LOVED them and I know he would not mind me 
adding  
>> them to my cooking repetoire.
>
>Did you look under croquetas de jamon? What I've seen/am 
familiar  
>with is a pretty standard European-style croquette (very 
different  
>from the terrifying chicken or turkey croquettes of my 
childhood...  
>my mom was and is an excellent cook in many ways, but had her  
>occasional flops, which for some reason seemed to frequently 
center  
>around leftover cooked chicken or turkey). Basically the chopped 
meat  
>in question (in this case, ham) is mixed with a very thick 
bechamel  
>sauce to bind it, usually chilled, formed, chilled again, then 
coated  
>with crumbs before frying.
>
>It's possible that what you got involved cornmeal as a binder, 
but is  
>it also possible this was a bechamel so thick it got sort of 
grainy  
>(either from the flour, the milk curdling, or both?)
>
>Here's what appears to be a fairly standard recipe:
>
>http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Croquetas%20de%20jamon%20
(ham% 
>20croquettes)
>
>Incidentally, when a Cuban refers to "roast pork", you want to 
listen  
>very carefully. It's a slightly different product from the 
typical  
>American "throw-it-in-the-oven" roast pork. Although I suppose  
>chopping it up and making it into croquettes levels the playing 
field  
>somewhat ;-).
>
>Happy hunting!
>
>Adamantius
>_______________________________________________
>Sca-cooks mailing list
>Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>
 

________________________________________________________________
Sent via the EV1 webmail system at mail.ev1.net