Chicken Croquettes

It was a hectic weekend with so many social engagements; Mothers’ summit: an annual gathering of mothers to pray for their children, a 50th birthday celebration of a friend, a wedding ceremony, visit to my tailor and catching up with friends on Whatsapp. So I just had enough time to create and make a few dishes. Sometimes I am dreaming and wishing we had more than 24 hours a day.

For the home meals for the week I settled for beans pottage and Abak soup this weekend. I hope to make a nice pot of chicken stews during the week, as stews are always a great accompanying sauce for a variety of carbohydrate foods. You can also make vegetable side dishes to complement the rice and stew or spaghetti and stew.  Moin Moin is missing from my fridge, I ran out last week, so I will get one of my friends to make this one since she is good at it. “I no fit kill myself” as we will say in Nigeria.

As I managed to have a little ‘me’ time on Saturday morning, I stumbled on a Brazilian recipe I think will be easy for everyone to make and may just be one of your Christmas Day offerings. Wait a minute…did I just “Christmas”?  Looks like 2015 has really moved at lightning speed. When so much is going on around the world time just seems to fly.

Chicken Croquettes is what this recipe is. I had thought to combine the chicken with a little mashed potato until I saw this Brazilian version. I liked the outcome of the Brazilian recipe but will definitely want to replace the wheat flour dough with something less processed like oatmeal flour.

Let me know how you go with this recipe and let’s share your alternative to the wheat flour. In the meantime, enjoy trying one of the recipes you will be having on your Christmas menu.

 

Recipe for Chicken Croquettes

To make the Dough

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Plain Flour

1 1/2 cups water

1 teaspoon crushed Chicken seasoning cube

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

 

Method

1. Dissolve the seasoning in the water
2. Add the flour and stir to form a smooth paste
3. Place on the fire and stir continually to form a cooked dough. This will take about 5 minutes for the dough to cook through

To make the Filling

1/2 Chicken Breast

1/2 teaspoon Ginger powder

1/2 clove minced Garlic

1/2 cup Sweet Corn

2 sticks Spring Onion

1 teaspoon chopped Coriander or any other dry herb like thyme.

1/2 teaspoon chopped Scotch Bonnet Pepper

3 pieces chopped green Shombo pepper or Indian green Chilli

3 small triangular packs of soft Cheese

Pinch of Chicken seasoning

Salt to taste

 

Method

1. Season chicken breast with dry ginger, pinch of chicken seasoning, salt and garlic. Allow to marinade for about 30 minutes. Steam for about 10 minutes or until cooked. Allow to rest and cool and cut into tiny bits
2. Chop all vegetables and add to the chopped chicken.
3. Add sweet corn, a pinch of chicken seasoning and cut up the cheese by hand and add and combine well. The cheese helps to ‘glue’ all the ingredients together. Set this aside.

 

 

To make the Chicken Croquettes

1/2 cup Bread Crumbs

1 beaten Egg

Vegetable Oil for frying

 

Method

1. Roll out the dough thinly on a board. This dough is quite sticky so you will need to flour the board very well. You can also turn the dough over flour the top and roll. This is ensure the dough does not stick to the board.
2. Using a circular cookie cutter cut the dough into circles, place about half a teaspoon of the filling on the cut out dough. Close up the small dough until you form a cone like shape at the tip. It helps to work the croquettes both hands to get a nice shape.
3. When all the croquettes are sealed, prepare to fry.
4. Get your bread crumbs and beaten egg ready.
5. Heat the oil.
6. Roll each croquette in the egg, remove and roll in the bread crumbs. You may need to reshape the croquette to retain the cone like shape after taking out of the bread crumbs.
7. Place croquettes on a frying spoon and drop in the medium hot deep oil to fry and brown. Strain each batch on kitchen paper.
8. Serve warm with some pepper sauce.