Anyhow…

When we were here for lunch last Friday, my girl was excited to see that they had perkedel…

…there and when I asked the girl waiting at the tables whether there was any tepung gandum (wheat flour) in it, she just said she did not know. Full stop.

Honestly, some of those people in the waiting staff here, there and everywhere are in dire need of some serious training. She could have gone into the kitchen to ask but no, she did not. In the end, I had to go and do it myself…and the nice lady there told me that there was wheat flour in it so that was it. We could not order it as it would not be gluten-free.

That left me with no choice – I would have to make my own and that was exactly what I did the very next morning. I did google to look at some recipes and I stumbled upon my blogger-friend’s and hers has tapioca flour in it which should be perfectly all right – it’s not wheat but how many potatoes would make up 150 gm? It seems that every recipe would give the measurement in grams…and this old dinosaur was wishing somebody would just say how many potatoes instead. Left to my own devices, I decided to just go ahead and simply make my own…anyhow and these were how they turned out…

I shared the photograph on Facebook and a friend asked me what they were.

They’re perkedel, I said, in Indonesian or bergedil in Malay…

…while the Spaniards would call theirs croquettas…

…and the Japanese ones, karaoke…oops, I mean, korokke…

…or in English, they are simply potato croquettes.

I did make some…

…before but those days, I could coat the exterior with bread crumbs and add some crushed cheese crackers to the ingredients as a binding agent but no, I would have to do without those things now.

So what did I do this time around? I boiled 3 potatoes, cut into quarters so they could cook faster and then I peeled and mashed them. If I am not wrong, they should not be too well-cooked which was what happened once when I tried making some luncheon meat croquettes…

The mixture was too mushy and was very difficult to handle and roll and press. I fried a shallot, peeled and thinly sliced and removed it from the oil and threw that in…along with some finely-chopped spring onions and curry leaves. In the meantime, I also fried some garlic in a bit of oil to cook a bit of minced beef to which I added some salt and pepper – once that was done, I added it to the rest of the ingredients, made balls out of the mixture and pressed to flatten. I coated each piece with a bit of egg, beaten and fried it in oil.

It turned out very well – tasted great but I do think I could make it even better. In the meantime, these will just have to do – my simply-cook-it-anyhow, no recipe perkedel, bergedil or potato croquettes whichever way you choose to call it.