How to make Korokke (Japanese style Croquette) 〜コロッケ〜 | easy Japanese home cooking recipe

Welcome to Daiju's Kitchen. Today I'm going to show you how to make korokke, or Japanese-style croquette. So, korokke is a quite popular food in Japan nowadays. It was one of those foods that was imported from outside, from England I think, after the Meiji Restoration, as Japan opened the country and a lot of Western culture came in. But as many Western-influenced food in Japan has been involved in the Japanese way, and so it might be a little bit different than the croquette that you may know, I do have to admit, it is a bit longer process, because you have to cook something and let it cool down, and then cook it again. But each process is not difficult itself, and it's very difficult to fail. So if you're looking for something that you really cook, then I suggest giving it a try. In Japan, very few people actually make them themselves, because there are many places where they sell croquette, like many butchers sell croquette on the side, or there's even a store that sells only different variations of croquettes. You can also even find them in almost every convenience store. So if you're in Japan, I suggest giving it a try as well. Then, let's get started. Here are the ingredients for making korokke, or Japanese-style croquette. So here I have ground beef, onion, and potatoes. And for the potatoes, there are actually two kinds of potatoes. You want to find the one that gets soft when cooked. Then for the seasoning, salt and pepper. And for the coating, I have all-purpose flour, egg, and panko. This is Japanese-style bread crumb. Many Asian stores nowadays have these panko, or you can make them yourself from just regular bread. How to make that, watch my other video on tonkatsu. I'm showing how you can make your own panko. Then of course, frying oil, and Worcestershire sauce for the sauce at the end. Then let's start cooking. That's the first thing we're going to boil the potatoes. Make sure you boil the potato from water. And just to make it easier at the end to peel the skin off, I'm going to make a very small slit like this. I'm going to put the lid on and turn the heat to high and bring this to boil. Once this got to a boiling, I'm going to turn the heat to simmer and cook like this and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or so, depending on the size of the potatoes. Then as the potatoes are cooking, I'm going to prepare the rest of the ingredients. So for the onion, I'm going to cut into small pieces. For that, I want to cut in half, cut the top off, peel off the skin. Then I'm going to make slits like this without cutting all the way to the end. Just like this, still attached on the bottom like this, so that when I cut like this here, I can make small pieces very easily. I'm just left with the end like this. Now let's cook the onion and the ground beef. Then I'm going to heat the frying pan with a medium heat. Then once this got warm, I'm going to put in a little bit of frying oil, about one to two teaspoon. Then we're going to put in the onion. Then we're going to fry this very lightly. As the onions got a little cooked and got transparent, I'm going to put in the ground beef. You want to try to break out the ground beef like this. Then once it gets cooked like this, this is finished. I'm going to turn heat off. Then we're just going to wait until the potato gets cooked. So it's been about 20 minutes now. So to tell if the potatoes are cooked, I'm going to use a chopstick like this and stick it in right here in the middle. Oh yeah, it's pretty good. And if it doesn't go right in through, then it's still not cooked. So you might want to cook five minutes or so more, but these are cooked now. So I'm going to turn heat off and take these out. So I'm going to wait a little bit and let the potatoes cool off, so I can peel this easily. Now once it's cooled off a little bit, I'm going to peel off the potatoes. And these kind of black parts, you definitely want to get rid of. Then using a potato smasher like this, I'm going to smash those potatoes. So as this gotten smashed, I'm going to put in the fried meat and then mix it up. I'm going to season this with about four teaspoons or so and also about the same amount of black pepper and then mix it in. So as it's been thoroughly mixed, I'm going to put it to the side and let it cool off because it'll be much easier to shape the form once it gets cooled down and also holds the shape better when it's cool. So we're going to wait about half an hour or so. So half an hour has passed, let's shape the croquette. So I'm going to separate this into like eighth. So I'm going to shape this into a flat oval shape. You don't want to make it too flat because it'll break easy. You also don't want to make it too wide because the inside will stay too cold when you cook them. This about one and a half centimeter width is fine. Then we're just going to repeat the same process. So then this is finished for the shaping of the croquette. Now let's coat up the croquette with the panko or the breadcrumbs. So for that, I'm going to coat up everything with the all-purpose flour. Now we're going to coat this with an egg and then I'm going to put the panko in here. So the best way to do this is that you put the egg with the left hand or one of the hand and then put it in here like this. Then with the other hand, I'm going to coat it with the breadcrumb. Then you have the wet hand and a dry hand like this. So you put it with the left hand in here like this and then pass it to the panko. And the panko you only handle with the left hand. So all the croquette is coated with the breadcrumbs. And as you can see in this way, my hand stays clean like this. So before frying the croquette, I'm going to prepare the side dish of the sliced cabbage. So for that, I'm just going to need probably one or two leaves of these. So for this, I want to take out this stem part. Today, I'm not going to be using this, but don't throw them away. They're still very good. They're good for any soup or any kind of cooking recipe. So then I'm going to cut these into thin slices. Don't be discouraged if you can't cut them thin like this in the first try. It also took me a while to get this stage as well. And when you do this, don't hold the cabbage like this. Otherwise, you'll cut your finger. Hold your finger like this. We call this a cat's paw. So how you do it is that hold the cabbage like this. And the knife is going to touch the knuckle so that you don't cut your finger like this. And then you'll be sliding your finger backwards like this. I'm going to put it on a plate like this. Then let's finish for that. Then let's fry the croquette. So in a pot, I'm going to put in some frying oil. Then we're going to turn the heat to high and bring this to about 170 degrees. So once it's turned to 160 degrees, I'm going to turn the heat to medium low. If you don't have a thermometer like this, you can just put in some breadcrumbs in here. If it sinks and then come up right away like this, then this is 160 degrees. Then this, I'm going to put in the croquette. So make sure you put in very softly. Otherwise, they can break quite easily. Don't touch them too much. You want to let it cook very slowly like this for about one to two minutes. So after about a minute or so, I'm going to flip to the other side. Also starting to look very good. Be very gentle with this. So after another minute, I'm going to flip to the other side again. Then again, I'm going to flip one last time. Now at the very end, I'm going to turn the heat to high and make the crust crunchy. Just for 20 or 30 seconds or so. Then this is looking really good. Then I'm going to take it out. Then this is finished. Let's put it on a plate. By the way, these leftover croquettes, you can save it for later. If you're eating it in the next couple days, then you can put it in the fridge like this. Or if you want to save it for a longer time, then you can put it in the freezer and freeze it and just fry them like this whenever you want to eat them. In that case, you want to make sure that you're heating with a very low heat in the beginning so that it gets cooked through to the middle. Then this is finished for the croquette. Let's eat. Oh, this looks so great. Then let's eat. Itadakimasu! So first, I'm going to try it without any sauce. Itadakimasu! So soft on the inside and so crunchy on the outside. Oh, so delicious. I'm going to put some Worcestershire sauce. Itadakimasu! The sauce is just such a good match with this croquette. So good. And this croquette with the Worcestershire sauce pairs up so well with the rice. Itadakimasu! So good. Oh, so good. This is such a great mixture of a flavor. Very subtle, but the sweet flavor of the potato with the ground up beef, a little bit of the onion, and with the Worcestershire sauce, and the crunchy breadcrumb. Oh, such a great combination. And the sliced cabbage is also very good with the Worcestershire sauce. And by the way, this croquette is also very good with the lemon. Squeeze a little bit of lemon juice on it. Like an ass. This is also a very good change of flavor in between. Something you can also do is eat the cabbage with the croquette. You can also get the crunchiness of the cabbage combination with the croquette. Oh, so good. Something that you can also do, it'll probably be seen kind of like a low class, but at the same time still tastes very good, is that you kind of make your own donburi with your bowl of rice. So what you do is you have a layer of rice, and on top of it a layer of sliced cabbage, and this croquette soaked in the sauce, and make my own croquette donburi. I think I'm just gonna have everything all together. Itadakimasu! Not something you want to do in front of other people. Except for your families. Oh, that's so totally delicious. Oh, that was so savory, so delicious. So as you saw, making croquette or Japanese style croquette takes a little bit of time and has a lot of process, but each step is technically not particularly anything difficult. If you're patient enough and if you're up for the challenge, that's something you may want to try. I definitely guarantee that it is worth the effort. So I hope you give this a try. If you enjoyed what you saw, I'd love it if you could hit the like button for me, and if you have any questions or any requests or any feedback, please feel free to write anything in the comments below. Then I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Bye!