Chicken Croquettes with Tomato sauce

This recipe is an altered version of a croquette recipe. The sauce is tailored for the dish, as sage and tarragon go well together for a cicken dish, and the lemon in the croquettes is supposed to compliment this.

450g potatoes, diced
2tbsp milk
200g chicken, finely sliced
3 eggs
rind of 1 lemon, finely grated
120g breadcrumbs
2 spring onions, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable oil, for deep fat frying

1tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
400g can of chopped tomatoes
2tbsp tomato puree
1tbsp sage, chopped
1tbsp tarragon, chopped
salt and pepper to taste



Step 1
Boil the potatoes for 25 minutes, or until tender. Drain the potatoes and return to the pan on a low heat to ensure that all excess water evaporates. Mash the potatoes with the milk and two of the eggs. Season with the salt and pepper, and mix in the chicken, lemon rind, and spring onions. Chill for at least 1 hour n the fridge.

Step 2
Meanwhile prepare the sauce by heating the oil in a saucepan and adding the onions, frying for 5 minutes until softened. Add the tomates and the puree and stir and simmer the sauce for 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, before serving add the sage and tarragon and warm through for a minute.

Step 3
Remove the potato mixture from the fridge and divide into roughly equal sized portions. Shape each portion into a sausage shape then, having beaten the last egg,dip the potato mixture into the egg then the breadcrumbs.

Step 4
Heat the vegetable oil in a saucepan, deep-fat fryer, or a deep bottomed frying pan, until a cube of bread dropped in it sinks, rises and sizzles in 10 seconds. Deep fry the croquettes for 5 minutes or until golden and crisp, serve immediately with the sauce.

This recipe is flexible in terms of sauce and ingredients for the croquette. I used chicken, but you could also use turkey, or ham, or vegetables. If using ham you could change the sauce to a cheesy one to better fit with the ingredients. This could be an excellent use of leftovers from christmas dinner, as you could have the potatoes mashed, add in the turkey, and you could then finely slice brussel sprouts to replace the spring onions, and serve with cranberry sauce instead of a tomato based sauce.