Turn your leftovers into a delicacy with this Spanish zero waste recipe 🫡

Описание: Spanish recipes to reuse leftovers #1: Croquetas

I made cocido for my whole family, but apparently I calculated like a five-year-old (or like a Galician grandma)... So I ended up with all these leftovers. But traditional cuisine has always relied on leftovers and zero-waste solutions. The number one option could only be Spanish croquetas!

Traditional croquetas are made just with flour and enough cooking time, but this recipe is slightly adapted to handle some extra moisture coming from whatever leftovers you have. Think of any stew you can imagine and adapt it to this recipe to get a great tapa that you can drop in the freezer and pull out whenever you crave it.

RECIPE:

600 g whole milk (reserve half a cup for the cornstarch)
54 g flour
54 g butter
21 g cornstarch (diluted in a bit of cold milk)

From whatever leftovers: strain while still warm to separate the solids from the sauce. I used:

500 g drained solids
230 g sauce (which was actually a reduction of the cocido soup, concentrated and powerful)

Of course, before cooling down try and adjust the salt 🧂

TIPS to avoid croquetas exploding while frying:

While coating, let the croquetas rest in the container with the breadcrumbs (while shaping the next batch), so the coating dries and gains a bit more strength.

Once coated, freeze or chill the croquetas. This helps the coating absorb a bit of moisture. Right before frying, coat again with an extra layer of breadcrumbs.

Fry in small batches and avoid overcrowding the pan.

If you want to make sure you have no losses, use flour and double-coat (flour – egg – breadcrumbs – egg – breadcrumbs). The result is a thicker coating, which I personally find less delicate, but many traditional recipes use it.