Beef Croquettes Recipe – Shallow Fried and Baked

I should have done this recipe way back but knowing that it does take extra effort I kept pushing it off till this week. So here is my mother’s recipe. I also experimented by baking some of the croquettes which were equally firm and held their shape. Beef croquettes definitely has a Portuguese origin and is somewhat close to the Dutch and Japanese.

        Shallow-fried Beef Croquettes

There are many variation in cooking the ground beef and how the croquettes are cooked. Some recipes  use Goan smoked sausages, recheado masala or the popular meat dry spices called Jeerem-Meerem for cooking the ground meat. Some use bread crumbs or cream of wheat/rava. And finally they are either shallow-fried or deep-fried. The reason I shallow-fried is my mom makes it that way. For extra flavor she adds more sautéed onions with a dash of sugar and fresh chopped cilantro/coriander to the ground meat mix, before she shapes them into cylindrical croquettes rolls. If you have leftover cooked beef like a roast you can use it.

Baked Beef Croquettes

Beef croquettes are very popular in a catholic household in Goa as a snack or h’orderve for parties, weddings and celebrations along with Coriander chutney sandwiches, Forminhas and Beef patties, Rissois de camarao …click on each to go to the respective recipes.

Popular Goan Party Snacks

4 Step in making croquettes

Cook the ground meat.

Grind the cook meat and add extra sautéed onions, egg, fresh cilantro and 3 slices of bread and let refrigerate for 30 -60 minutes.

Roll them in cylindrical croquettes and coat them in cream of wheat.

Shallow or deep fry the croquettes.

Serving Size: 16 croquettes

Ingredients:

1 lbs of ground lean meat ( 94% to 6%)

1 medium onion diced very finely

2 tbsp of recheado masala/goan jeerem-meerem (click for recipe)

1 tsp of vinegar

1 tsp of sugar

4 cloves minced garlic

1/2″ ginger minced

1 cup cream of wheat for coating/ finely ground bread crumbs

1 egg

3 sliced of bread crumbled

8-10 sprigs of finely chopped fresh cilantro/ coriander

oil for shallow frying

Salt to taste

Directions:

Cooking  the ground beef/ mince/ keema

Heat oil in a pan and saute half the amount of onions, ginger, garlic till soft and fragrant. Next add the recheado masala/ jeerem-meerem, vinegar and saute for 30-60 seconds.

Add the meat and mix very well, season with salt and half the amount of sugar. Cover and cook for 15 minutes on medium heat. Keep checking occasionally and stir as not to stick or burn.

Let cool completely or overnight.

Making the Croquettes

Saute the remaining onion till soft. Take off heat and add the remaining sugar, season with salt and fine chopped cilantro/ coriander. Let cool.

In a food processor/ meat grinder add the cooled meat, egg and crumbled bread slices and pulse a couple of times till all is mixed well.

Take out the mixture from the food processor and mix the cooled sautéed onion mixture. The texture and consistency have to be similar to a cookie dough to be able to shape the croquettes. Refrigerate it for 30 -60 minutes.

Divided the meat mixture into equal portions about 16 portions, roll them as ball and then press them down to form in cylindrical shape. Coat them in cream of wheat or finely ground bread crumbs and shallow fry on each side for about 5-7 minutes on medium heat.

For baking:

Heat oven to 400F. Line a cookie sheet tray with parchment paper, spray oil, then line the croquettes and spray the croquettes on top with oil. Bake for 20-25 minutes turn the croquettes halfway through the baking process to be baked evenly.

Tip: Make the croquettes ahead of time and freeze it. You can reheat them in the oven for 15 minutes at 375F.