Last month I didn’t participate in a Dutch and Belgian “Foodblog event”. The goal of that foodblog event is to win the contest at the end of the month. If you won, you can decide what the theme for next month will be and who will be the next winner. Last month, “Italiaans koken met Antoinette” won the battle. She chose the topic: A dish of the Low Countries with an original, exotic touch. I liked the topic, so I decided to participate. May the culinary force be with me…
If you have a look at Wikipedia and read what they say about the Dutch cuisine, you will read that the cuisine is known for cheese, smoked eel and croquettes. You can even take the croquettes “out of the wall”. They have a lot of hot food vending machine where you can buy your favorite croquettes. Febo is a famous company of croquettes. Have a look at this movie if you want to see how it works.
Cheese and croquettes were my source of inspiration for the Foodblog Event. I will make Cheese Croquettes with an exotic (read: Italian) touch. It’s called Goat cheese croquettes with walnuts, sun dried tomatoes and Italian herbs.
What do you need? some sun dried tomatoes, Italian herbs: dried thyme, dried basil, dried oregano, 150 grams of Goat Cheese (Not too soft, but also not too hard. You have to knead it), walnuts, pepper, salt, flour, Panko (Japanese breadcrumbs), breadcrumbs
What do you do? Roast the walnuts shortly. Chop them. Knead the cheese with the chopped walnuts, chopped tomatoes and some of the herbs. Add pepper and salt. Shape into croquettes or little balls. Put the balls a couple of hours in the fridge. After a while take out the balls. Mix the breadcrumbs and the Panko. Take three bowls: one for the flour, one for the egg and one for the breadcrumb mix. Dip the croquettes into the flour, egg and breadcrumbs. Put them away in the fridge for one or two hours. Take them out and repeat the “dipping move” a second time. Put them away in the fridge or put them aside till you want to fry the croquettes. Fry in deep fat until nicely brown. Serve warm. You can serve it with a honey mustard sauce as an appetizer.
P.S. Other options:
- You can add honey into the Goat Cheese.
- Try it with pine nuts instead of walnuts.
- Blend walnuts, till you have “walnut powder”. Mix the powder with the breadcrumbs
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