Where did we go wrong?…

I had some what-I-called “luncheon meat potato croquettes” that my missus made in one of the photographs in my post the other day and my friend in NZ wasted no time at all in asking for the recipe. Well, actually, it was quite or almost a disaster. My missus grumbled that the luncheon meat was too soft and everything disintegrated the moment she tried to deep-fry it in the oil. In the end, she baked it in the oven and thankfully, that worked pretty well. Despite all that, they tasted very nice though – the croquettes or should I call them bergedil as they certainly look the same to me. Ah well, whatever name we call it, as Shakespeare would say, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” so it doesn’t really matter as long as it tastes great.

Following my missus’ not-too-successful attempt, the other morning, I decided to do it myself. I boiled four small potatoes and mashed it all up…

…and I cut half a can of luncheon meat…

I guess one could substitute this with minced or corned beef or tuna or something else, if one so desires. I chopped one small Bombay onion, some spring onions and chilies…

…and then I mixed everything together after which, I crushed 20 pieces of cheese crackers and added that too…

Finally,  I added an egg…

…and once everything was mixed thoroughly enough, I started to deep-fry the pieces. This I did by rolling a ball of the mixture and pressing it flat and dropping it into the hot oil in the pan. This was the first batch that I fried…

…and as you can see, it did not disintegrate and came out quite well…

At the end of it all, I managed to fry about 15 or more pieces altogether…

I placed them on some kitchen towels to soak away the excess oil so that they would not be too oily.

Now, what was it that did not turn out quite right? Firstly, the taste of the luncheon meat was not strong enough. Perhaps I should have used the whole can but I was afraid that it might cause the croquettes to disintegrate in the process of deep-frying like what happened to my wife’s.

Secondly, the mixture was very mushy and sticky so it was very hard to roll and press to put into the oil to fry. Perhaps one egg was a bit too much and what I should have done was to break it into a bowl and pour in just the right amount to get the right texture in the mixture…or perhaps, I should have coated the pieces with the egg and crushed biscuits (bread crumbs) prior to frying instead of throwing everything in and mixing them all together.

Thirdly, the deep-frying was quite tedious (for me, that is – you all know that I’m lazy, L-A-Z-Y, lazy! LOL!!!) and since baking worked pretty well when my missus did it, I could have done that as well. For one thing, it certainly would help reduce the amount of oil used.

Whatever it is, it was good enough, no question about that, and we did enjoy them for our lunch that day.