Recipe: Potato Croquettes

I love potato croquettes! What could be better that a combination of mashed potatoes, deep fried crunch and some other yummy cheese flavor or perhaps a surprise of crab meat inside!

Recently I made a dish for a dinner party including potato-parmesan croquettes- Pictured Here:

Seared Sockeye Salmon with Potato-Parmesan Croquettes, Roasted Asparagus & Grainy Mustard Beurre Blanc

Recipe: Potato Parmesan Croquettes:

• 1 & 1/2 Baking Potatoes/Person
• 1 T. Butter/Person
• 1-2 egg yolks/person
• 1/4 c. Ground Parmesan/Person
• 1/2 c. Panko/Person
• Veggie Oil for Deep Frying

1. (Make Mashed Potatoes) Boil Potatoes in salty 'sea' water until soften. Sieve potatoes and return to pot to dry out the potatoes as much as possible. Run through potato ricer. Add butter, salt and pepper.
2. Add parmesan and mix well.
3. Add 1 egg yolk and mix in well. Perhaps you need 2 per/person? See too wet or too dry notes below.
4. Grab about 1/4 cup of mixture and quickly roll into a ball in your hands. Ball should form in about 3-5 seconds in your hand. Continue to 'ball' all the mixture.
5. Drop each ball in the panko and shake the panko bowl, allowing the potato 'ball' to roll around the panko mixture itself (this keeps the perfect 'ball' shape easier).
6. Deep fry each ball at 375 degrees in veggie oil until golden brown. Let croquettes sit on papertowel for a minute before serving.

TO WET OR TOO DRY? Here is how you tell: You want the mixture to be 'ballie' - not to wet and not to dry, because you want the mixture to hold up in a deep fryer, but you still want them soft, like little mashed potato pillows. So you should always, add the first yolk, then test the mixture:
TEST: If you grabb a 1/4 of the mixture and roll in around in your hand for about 3 seconds, it should easily form a perfect ball, without cracks and if you dropped it 3-4 inches back into the bowl, it should not flattened and it should keep (at least 90% of) its ball shape.
HYPOTHESIS 1: Therefore, if the mixture had cracks - it is too dry - add another yolk.
HYPOTHESIS 2: If you dropped the ball and it flattened, loosing most of its 'ball' shape, the mixture is too wet. You (1) may not have dried out your potatoes completely when making mashed potatoes; (2) may have added too much butterl (3) may need to dush in through a flour sifter a tablespoon of flour at a time to bring the mixture back to the right 'ball' consistency.