Typical Spanish croquetas: spinach and mushrooms

Published on 31/08/2011 | In Spain | By Monica |

- Prep Time
- 60 Minutes
- Cook Time
- 5 Minutes
- Difficulty Level

This recipe I’ve been owing to my friend Alfonso from the blog Recetas de Rechupete!! I finallyyyy made them. It’s funny how I started to cook much more peruvian food when I wen to live to Madrid, and now that I’m in Berlin, well, of courseee I miss some Spanish food 🙂 So, my friend Ana came to visit and brought typical jamón serrano, chorizo, lomo. My roomate Clovis also loves cooking and making thematic dinners, so he prepared the delicious Tortilla (delicious) and I made some tostas with my rye home-made bread and this croquetas. It has some delicacy but it’s not hard, you just have to put energy to it!! This time, not so many pictures of them, they ate them so fast, they would not let me!! Imagine how good they were 🙂

They were delicious!! I leave you also the pictures from Clovis’ tortilla and some of the spanish things we had. Soon the delicious tosta!!

Clovis’ delicious tortilla de patatas:

Ingredients

For the bechamel (taken from Recetas de Rechupete):
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons butter
750 ml whole fresh milk
Nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground pepper
For the fillings (spinach and mushrooms):
2 white onions
1 cup of fresh spinach
1/4 cup of raisins
250 gr de champiñones
finely chopped parsley
salt, pepper and nutmeg
For the breading:
3 eggs and grated bread.

Instructions

We first start with the bechamel sauce:
Sift the flour.
Start heating the milk at medium heat for about 5 minutes, without allowing it to boil.
Melt the butter at low heat.
Add the flour and mix well until it browns a little. This is called Roux.
Mix well with a wooden spoon and when it is all well incorporated, start to add the milk beating constantly to prevent that lumps get formed.
Add salt, pepper and nutmeg
Keep on stirring in a non-stop motion until it thickens at low-medium heat. Let it chill
Now the fillings:
Chop the onions finely. We will use half for one filling and half for the other one.
Clean the mushrooms with a humid napkin and chop finely as well.
In a pan we add some olive oil, cook the onions until transparen and add the mushrooms.
Add salt and pepper.
Cook until all the liquid the mushrooms release is reabsorbed.
For the spinach filling, cook the onions and add the spinach and raisins.
Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Chop finely when it chills a bit.
Finally....
Add half of the bechamel to the mushrooms filling and the other half to the spinach.
Butter and flour two pyrex and add there each filling. Cover with film paper to prevent it from drying.
Leave in the fridge for at least a day. This would make it easy to handle.
For the breading, beat well the eggs and add salt and pepper.
With the help of two spoons thake some of the thick bechamel and start to from the croquetas, pass through the eggs and then the grated bread. I gave each one a different form so that later one could recognize them.
Place them in a plate and leave them in the fridge for about 1 hour before frying.
Fry in plenty oil until they are nicely browned..