Croquette…

When I was growing up, I looked like an all American girl with blue eyes and blonde hair and a love for hamburgers, hot dogs, and French fries. This was a huge contrast to my Japanese grandmother who loved her miso soup, rice and seaweed.

At the time we felt like such a huge contrast. Miso was my least favorite food and rice was too boring for my taste.

There were many aspects of Japanese food at the time that were beyond my comprehension. And there were things that brought pure delight.

As a child I was in love with sweet things, so I adored the pancakes with red bean paste in them. I loved the Milky hard candies that tasted like sugar milk. And I was a ridiculous child who would try and peel off the rice paper that was found on botan rice candy. As a kid, mochi wasn’t appealing. It was a texture that reminded me of a slug without the slime. It was something I would grow into. And I never needed to grow into enjoying the salty, crispy, crunchy nature of senbei crackers. I enjoyed the snacks, and it's time to share about the more sustainable foods I grew up with.

I still remember looking at the sauce for katsu chicken like it was alien blood. The dark brown sauces looked massively unappealing and were thick. After my grandma told me the sauce was her version of ketchup, I was a beaming ball of happiness. I love ketchup and looked forward to enjoying something she enjoys. Her description has stuck with me and is how I describe it to friends.

The second food that was a huge hit with me was tempura, because it transformed every veggie into a delightful texture of lightness and softness. Sometimes we would use the sauce, which reminded me of soy sauce if it took the form of sprinkles in flavoring and body. This is my favorite way of eating vegetables to this day.

My sweet tooth was captivated by inari, which we called brown bags, that provided me with sweetness, soft outer shell and sometimes fluffy warm rice in the middle.

Sushi was something I ate because that’s what my grandma grew up on. In my teens, I shared it was classmates who didn’t know what to make of it. In college, my best friend loved sushi and introduced me to the delight of trying to eat all of the roe given to us. I still play this game.

Although I love sushi, and it’s my go to stress food, there is nothing like the croquettes I grew up with. They still warm my heart and soul in a way no other food has done. My grandma’s croquettes were a masterpiece of culinary expertise. They were balls of mashed potatoes with ground beef and a tiny bit of onion dipped in breaded bits that have the texture of rice crispies. It was like eating a cloud with flavor that delighted me. There was light crispiness and a sense of fluffiness that made every day brighter.

Every Japanese restaurant I went to was a quest to find and share croquettes. I was stunned by how many places didn’t have this utterly delightful snack. I probably found two restaurants who had them. They were sweet potato flavored. In my quest, I found some at the markets that were like thick pancakes in shape. They contained different ingredients inside like sweet potatoes, mashed up shrimp, or potatoes with small veggies. The textures varied from solid meat to mainly potatoes and it rarely had the lightness of her recipe. And they never had the same ingredients she used.

As an adult I was in for a treat when I traveled the world because unlike my area, which didn’t have a lot of croquette options. I would find that France and Spain had their own versions of it. And delighted in sharing it with loved ones.

In France, instead of having a lightly breaded textured that was cripsy, there was a heavier sense of breading, sometimes doughy. Inside of them there would be a fairly solid piece of cheese or even something like melted cheese. Some of them had cheese with meat like bits of ham.

As far as variety goes I found the most in Spain which included a version that reminded me of quiche in flavor but formed a dough like finger food. They had ones with ham and cheese, chicken, chicken and cheese, and fish. My best guess is it was cod. There were ones that were almost lightly breaded and some that reminded me of a pizza calzone because of the cheese. There was never a single one that tasted like the last one.

I had the pleasure of sharing the experience a couple of times. One time was at a group dinner in Spain where I bought some and shared. I enjoyed watching people try the dish. The croquettes at this meal was predominantly like eating a fried cheese curd. While at a market in Spain, I bought a variety and split them with a girlfriend. She didn’t like the first try and I asked her to keep trying because they varied. She discovered a combination that she enjoyed which was light batter and lots of cheese and meat. Some of them were heavy on the batter and very vegetable based along with others that tasted like a soup in a ball.

I am grateful to have traveled and experienced the variety of textures, heaviness vs. lightness in textures along with all the differences of what people put inside of croquettes. While I was refreshing my memory on the differences I experienced through researching popular recipes, I discovered that this dish that I saw as solely a Japanese dish was borrowed from the French. I also learned that the English spelling of the word was korroke. I grew up thinking it was spelt croquette. Now I see that it will always be korokke to me.