Spicy Chicken & Potato Croquettes

The Super Bowl is just around the corner, and I don’t think I have thought about snack type foods as much as I have these last few weeks. When you have an event like that, you want some delicious and easy to eat foods that will please many different people. Some may like chicken but not fish…others may like fish but not beef. A unique spread with an assortment of many different items will undoubtedly please everyone.

I’ve done chicken wings before on the blog and they are always a great item to make but a little messy to eat, so I started thinking about ways to get the same flavor but in a less messy way. Since I had created a few recipes with potatoes I had some steamed potatoes on hand, so I thought it would be great to make some potato croquettes filled with some chicken reminiscent of spicy chicken wings. You could even use rice if you wanted to like I did when I made arancine. The most important thing is to use up what you have on hand, since that is why croquettes were created in the first place…to use up leftovers.

So off I went to create a potato croquette with a chicken wing flavor…

I still had some Gourmet Sauce left over from some samples that were sent to me from a company called Crazy Bitch Sauces, and I must say, this sauce works really well for this recipe…it gives it such a great spicy edge.

Spicy Chicken & Potato Croquettes (makes 10 large croquettes)
4 cups mashed potatoes

1 large chicken thigh, cooked and diced

¼ cup Gourmet Sauce (Crazy Bitch Sauces)

2 teaspoons garlic salt

½ teaspoon ground pepper

1 tablespoon finely grated parmesan cheese

1 egg

2-4 tablespoons melted butter

½ small onion, finely diced

4 or 5 cut up chives (add after filling is cooked)

olive oil

S&P

Breading
1 egg

¼ cup water

2 cups bread crumbs (or panko)

2 tablespoons ground parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons dried parsley

¼ teaspoon each of S&P

Add 2 tablespoons of  olive oil to a small skillet, toss in the diced onion and cook until it has caramelized then add the chicken and toss together. Add the ¼ cup Gourmet Sauce and cook until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Taste for S&P and adjust if necessary, then set aside to cool.

Add the mashed potatoes to a medium sized bowl and then add the egg, garlic salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and melted butter and mix it all together. Use the melted butter to adjust the creaminess of the potatoes. I used Idaho, but if you use Yukon gold, you might use less.

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop some potato mixture and make a well in the center with your finger until the potato filling rises up along the edges of the scoop. Take a small teaspoon full of the filling and add it to the center, and using the edges of potato that have risen above the scoop, seal the bottom of the croquette and place it onto a paper lined tray.

This should make about 10 large croquettes but it depends on the size of your scoop. Repeat with the rest of the mixture and then refrigerate them for about 30 minutes.

Once they have chilled, they will be a little easier to handle during the breading process. Add the egg and water into a small bowl and whisk well. For this, you will not need to use flour, the egg wash and the bread crumbs works great. On a large plate, add the bread crumbs along with the rest of the dry ingredients and mix them well together. Take each croquette and dip into the egg wash then roll in the bread crumbs until the whole thing is well coated, then place onto a paper lined tray. Finish the rest of the croquettes and the place back in the fridge to chill for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, heat up the oil and remember that we are just interested in making the breading a golden brown color. All the components are cooked, so each croquette will only cook for about 5 minutes or so. Remove from the fridge and fry each croquette in the oil then remove onto a paper lined tray and store in a warm oven until you are ready to serve.

Cheese Sauce

1 recipe cheese sauce

¼ cup crumbled blue cheese (or more if you prefer)

When the croquettes are chilling in the fridge, follow the directions on the link and make the cheese sauce, then add the blue cheese crumbles either in the sauce to melt or as crumbles on top of the sauce so that they stay chunky while eating.