Tilapia : Croquetas de Pescado : Fish Croquettes : Simple Tartar Dip

Croquetas de Pescado

Croquetas de Pescado. This is one dish I’ve always wanted to try but I always had my aunt Mirenxtu make it for me when I went home to visit. Since I moved to LA I’ve waited for the next opportunity to visit home to taste her wonderful fish croquetas! but the time has come , I need  to fend for myself! It is hard work and very well worth it. My aunt makes it look easy, but it takes coordination and preparation. You could spend hours cleaning up the mess unless you took the time to prep.  Croquetas or croquettes are made in many countries around the world and go by all sorts of names. I would love to know where they came from, because they are delicious and ingenious. The spanish preparation, at least the one I’m familiar with includes the making of a béchamel sauce that serves as the base, plus the addition of some kind of protein, in our case fish, tilapia, a wonderful light white flaky fresh water fish, very affordable, and I find it perfect for a quick weekday evening meal. This mix of béchamel and protein then gets dusted in flour, soaked in beaten eggs, then breaded and fried or deep fried. Still here? ok, let’s go over this in more detail but you’ll see how easy this actually is, just stay organized and you’ll survive!

 

 

Croquetas de Pescado

 

Ingredients (makes about 8 croquettes):

Croquettes:

150g tilapia
15-20g butter
15-20g olive oil
10g shallots (or onions)
1 garlic clove
15g finely chopped parsley (I usually add this to taste)
50g AP flour
250g whole milk (1 cup)
panko bread crumbs (thinned in a food processor)
1 beaten egg
150g AP flour for dusting
1 tbsp of dill pickle brine
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Tartar dip:

2-4 Tbsp Mayo (if you can make your own, more power to you)
a few baby dill pickles (or any pickles really, you decide)
some fresh dill, a couple of fronds is probably fine
pepper to taste
1 tbsp white wine or rice vinegar

 

Croquetas de Pescado

Measure and combine both olive oil and butter, you can use only butter or only oil if you prefer. I like this combination though. The best of both worlds! Remember, we are getting ready to prepare a béchamel sauce, once you’ve measured your ingredients, make sure everything is ready in front of you, avoid chopping or peeling..etc while cooking takes place.

Croquetas de Pescado

Heat up your sauce pan and add the oil and unsalted butter, medium high and melt and whisk together. Don’t let the oil burn, if you see any smoke, remove from the heat and give it some time and lower the heat a bit. If you see a lot of smoke, start over, that oil will taste rancid and ruin you beautiful croquettes. Be ready to add the chopped shallot, which we want to caramelize a bit.

Croquetas de Pescado

Cook the shallot for about 5 minutes, until you see it turning a nice golden brown… by now the smell coming out of your pan will make you hungry, and it gets better… add the flour and cook, stirring constantly and cooking for about 5 minutes until this roux turns a nice light golden color, by now the smell is really incredible. You can remove the pan from the heat and allow to rest a bit.

Croquetas de Pescado

Add the milk (whole milk please) slowly into the pan. You can heat up the milk so the temperature difference between milk and roux isn’t as much, this way the milk won’t spatter or bubble as much, but be careful and add the milk slowly while whisking. I added cold milk slowly and worked perfectly well. The béchamel thicken up slowly and turn creamy and extremely appetizing. Add more milk slowly, keep checking. You don’t want the sauce runny, it should retain its shape but not be too dance either, we want it creamy creamy… remember, this is the base for the croquette, when you bite on the crunchy outside, you  should then experience the soft and delicate interior filling. So aim for that! You can add more milk but it is impossible to remove so keep that in mind. If your sauce becomes runny, you could cook off some of the water in the milk and save the sauce this way.

Croquetas de Pescado

Season your fillets generously with salt and pepper. Pan fry the fish is something you can do ahead of time, which I did. You can actually do it the night before and keep the fish in the fridge. Croquetas are a fantastic way to rescue leftover food, fish, chicken, ham, beef, veggies… anything that can be found left behind could be easily turned into something delicious by making croquettes.

Croquetas de Pescado

I like getting a nice browning on the fish for adding rich flavor to the croquettes. Don’t overcook the fish, we don’t want dry fish in our mix, just cooked until done and moist and flaky, but not raw in the center either. Tilapia is an easy fish to cook, but it is easy to overcook it too, so be nice to it!

Croquetas de Pescado

I let the fish rest a little bit then added them to sauce pan whole, this fish is so flaky you don’t need to shred it by hand, just stir it in, give a few nice strong turns with your spatula or a wooden spoon and incorporate it into the sauce. Add some salt, some pepper, a generous amount of chopped parsley.

Croquetas de Pescado

You can see how the content of the sauce pan is something very similar to a crab cake batter… at this point I had to control myself, I could have eaten all the batter before making the croquettes, it is delicious this way. I added some of the brine from the pickles jar. Works great, brings some sharpness into the batter. Taste and adjust to your personal taste, just use my ingredients list as a guide, specially when it comes to seasoning. Pour the batter on a flat plate and allow to cool in the fridge, this will stiffen it up and make the croquettes easy to shape and handle. Very important.

Croquetas de Pescado

I used panko crumbs, they are a bit too big for my taste so I processed them down to a nice smaller size. Any bread crumbs would work really, leftover croutons work great, any steal bread too, just make sure it is dry dry dry, if you have fresh bread, cut it into thin slices, and throw it in the oven at 300 until crispy and dry, but don’t let them brown. Then cut it into croutons and use your food processor or hands to get the desired size.

Croquetas de Pescado

Setup your assembly line, get your batter, some flour, beaten egg and bread crumbs ready…. I won’t lie to you, this part gets pretty messy pretty quickly, there are no photos to document it because I take the photos myself and my hands were caked in flour and breadcrumbs and eggs… and so was my work area.. but I still did it, because if these croquettes turn out to be even remotely as good as my aunt’s the sacrifice would be absolutely worth it.

Croquetas de Pescado

Here they are, all breaded and ready to dance.  I was so excited to get to this stage. Actually took a break, from cooking that is and cleaned up the kitchen. Keeping organized in the kitchen is hard but it is a must, specially when making dishes that require a lot of steps.  Keep the kitchen sink clear, it is pretty easy to pile a lot of stuff in it and when you need use it, you can’t, like say, draining your pasta water… I try as much as I can to keep the sink empty.

Croquetas de Pescado

The frying begins. Get your pan hot with plenty of olive or vegetable oil. Medium heat, there’s no rushing this browning, and remember that the inside is already cooked. And they brown fast too. I add the croquettes clockwise to the pan and turn them in the same order I added them, so they brown evenly. This is a great thing to keep in mind. Specially if you’re searing scallops. Fry as evenly as possibly. Deep frying would give you the best result, but I don’t have a deep fryer and deep frying on the stove is a bit tricky and not the safest. You can really shape these guys anyway you want. Fish cakes could be easier to fry actually, give it a try… they won’t be called croquettes though, I have to warn you!

Croquetas de Pescado

Finally, the hard part is over! And with the croquettes nice, crunchy and golden resting on a bed of kitchen towel you can focus on the next task. The tartar dipping sauce. I can’t think of anything easier to make. Specially this one here, I have only the basic components. I wanted to keep this dish simple and fun. So here we go, get your things ready, all your ingredients out!

Croquetas de Pescado

Finely chop the baby pickles and the dill. Really, that’s it.

Croquetas de Pescado

Mix the chopped dill and baby pickles with the mayo, add a splash of white wine or rice wine vinegar, taste and adjust the components. Add some pepper but you probably won’t need to add any salt.

Croquetas de Pescado

And that was it. I like croquettes warm or cold out of the fridge, they make really nice party food, but can also be presented as an elegant appetizer. They are found in spain at any bar and served as tapas.

Croquetas de Pescado

Hope you enjoyed todays how-to on croquettes. I would love to know what you think, and definitely share your opinion, ideas, improvements. I always welcome that. Until the next recipe! Take care!

Croquetas de Pescado

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24 comments

  1. This is a wonderful recipe. Really inspirational. I look forward to trying, adapting, and trying again, with different kinds of proteins and principal ingredients. And the photos are wonderful.

  2. Great to read I’m not the only one getting caked fingers when breading croquettes, arancini, fish fingers, and the like. It’s slightly better when you use a deep plate so you can roll around your croquettes in the flour or panko without touching them. When making bechamel, you can add all of the milk at once if you heat it to 80C/180F or so. Just whisk quickly.
    Great post! I think I’d prefer these with fish stock instead of milk. I’ve never seen bechamel made with olive oil before, interesting.

    1. yeah, all the milk can be added at once if preheated, but want to make sure people that haven’t done it understand the implications of mixing it in cold… it can be a bit messy. I thought of using fish stock in combination with the milk but wanted to stay true to the family recipe, I think that would work really well though. Have you made brioche with olive oil? it is quite wonderful. Not sure it would be called brioche but the substitution is really nice. Thanks for the great tip on breaking and deep bowls, pretty useful!!

    1. hahaah thank you 🙂 I’ve seen some recipes using potatoes, I think that would be a leaner version, béchamel… I just gained some weight by typing that word 😉 but I love it

  3. Another great instructional post, Paul. I remember my family making croquettes with baccalà many years ago and that’s the last time I’ve tried them. We just didn’t fry food very often and I really don’t now. Even so, I wouldn’t mind frying some of your croquettes. That bowlful of batter looks so very good. I want a taste of that!
    Arancini are the Sicilian equivalent of rice balls, though now you can get them pretty much anywhere in Italy. Families make arancini from last night’s risotto, while restaurants and street vendors will make risotto specifically for arancini. To make them, take some risotto, form an orange-sized ball (“arancio” means orange in Italian), bread it, and then (deep) fry it.. Sometimes there’s something placed in the the center of each ball. My family placed cheese in each.

    1. thanks John!!! I don’t fry food often either, and rarely deep fry in my sauce pan… plus I hate the fact that my kitchen has so little ventilation that any smoke and oil spatter ends up in the air and I have to constantly clean the house hahaha. I wish I had a good range hood. I need one. The arancici sounds delicious, and I think I have deep fried some paella balls for a test in the past without the breading and the rice puffed nicely on the outside… ah, am hungry again! rice balls stuffed with fish and deep fried… you had me at hello!

  4. That looks divine, Paul! I think that I actually drooled on my desk. I am a total sucker for croquetas. These look AMAZING! And the photos. I am blown away. Bravo! Can’t wait to make these! Have you ever tried it with smoked fish? I have had croquetas with bacalao (never fresh fish as you have hear) and was just thinking that it might be another nice option.

    1. baconbiscuit! thank you! glad you like this post!! 🙂 To answer your question, I have never had them with smoked fish before but that sounds really interesting. I’ve had them with salted cod many times but never made them myself… my grandma made them and I’ve had them in Spain, they are super popular there… I’ve never cooked with salted bacalao before… hmmm…. maybe it is time to address that!

  5. This looks like a great recipe – I’m wondering if there is a way to just get the basics without all of the dialogue? Like, just the recipe?

    1. hmm… I’ll do my best. You have the list of ingredients here so I won’t go over that.

      1. Season with salt and pepper and cook the fish. Reserve.
      2. Make the béchamel: heat up the oil and butter in a sauce pan. Cook the shallots in it. Add garlic and sauté briefly. Mix in the flour and whisk until well incorporated. Cook for a few minutes until the mix turns a little darker. Remove from the flame. Add a little bit of milk. Temper the roux this way. Then add the rest and whisk energetically until the béchamel is is thick.

      3. Mix the fish into the béchamel. The fish should be flaky and easy to break down. You could use a food processor.

      4. Taste the mixture and adjust seasoning if needed.
      5. Allow béchamel to cool off. If too runny, you could reduced it over the stove until really think. Remember, this mixture should have a malleable consistency.

      6. Prepare 3 containers, a. flour b. beaten eggs c. bread crumbs

      7. shape the croquetas and run them through each coating stage. First flour. Remove excess. Then Eggs. Remove excess and then cover in bread crumbs.

      8. Over medium heat in a sautee pan generously filled with about 2/3 inch of vegetable oil. Enough for shallow frying. Cook the croquetas until golden brown on all sides.

      9. I owe you the tartar sauce instructions but should be a quick read even with all the dialogue.

      hope this helps!!!! Thank you for following!

  6. Great recipe! I seasoned the croquetas with Cajun. They turned out spicy, crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside. Delicious! I will forever make croquetas with a béchamel base.

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