Saturday 12 December 2009

Nifty Thrifty: Chicken Croquettes From Leftover Roast Chicken

Lately, every time we've had a roast chicken dinner, we've made stock from the carcass, skin and giblets (except the liver, which I've fried as a snack). And the next evening we've enjoyed a tasty risotto made with some of the stock and leftover roast chicken.

But last time we had roast chicken, we'd had a pancetta and parmesan risotto (made with home-made stock out of the freezer) the night before.

So we fancied trying something different to use up the roast chicken leftovers.

We started flicking through our cookery books for inspiration. The first one I picked up was a book I'd not even read yet - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Meat Book, which I bought only recently.

In the chapter on dealing with leftovers, after the many pages on making home-made stock, I found the suggestion of chicken croquettes. It's not a detailed recipe; it simply advises to "Chop the chicken fairly small and mix with a roughly equal quantity of course fresh breadcrumbs. Mix in enough beaten egg to get a sticky but spoonable mixture and season well. Shallow fry spoonfuls in hot oil, turning occasionally, until golden and crisp."



Bingo! Just what we fancied. And we had some ageing bread to make into breadcrumbs too!

Leftover Roast Chicken Croquettes
Ingredients
Equal volumes of leftover roast chicken and breadcrumbs
Eggs to bind
Seasoning
Vegetable oil for frying

Method
  • We used our Magimix to blitz slightly stale white bread into breadcrumbs and to chop unevenly sized chunks of leftover chicken into tiny, evenly-sized pieces. (Just a brief blitz will do, you don't want to make puréed chicken meat!)
  • Combine the chicken and breadcrumbs and then mix in enough beaten egg to bring the mixture together without it getting too sticky to handle.
  • Form the mixture into balls and flatten slightly into patties.
  • Fry gently in about half a centimetre of cooking oil until brown on bottom side. Turn over to brown other side. Don't let the oil get too hot or the outsides will burn before the insides heat through.
  • Drain on kitchen paper and eat whilst piping hot.



We enjoyed ours with some of my home-made spicy green tomato ketchup!




10 comments:

Unknown said...

I've been having risotto after my roast chickens lately too. Sometimes I make Wagamama style noodle soup meal with the stock instead though. These croquettes sound very easy, must try those too.

Su-Lin said...

Definitely going to try this when we have some leftover chicken! The Spanish croquettes are lovely and all but so time consuming - this looks much faster for a quick dinner.

S said...

kavey i love love love croquettes.

gastrogeek said...

these look very tasty, what an original way to use leftover roast chicken!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this. I bought a roast chicken today, stripped it, and am making stock just now. Tomorrow, chicken croquettes! Makings of a very good lunch I'd say.

Helen T said...

Nice to have an idea as an alternative to our usual chicken risotto, will give these a try!

Karine said...

That is a great way to use leftovers chicken! Thanks for sharing :)

June said...

The River Cottage Meat Book is great! I LOVED the TV series and miss it. We'd love to get the book but I refuse to buy the American edition so we'll be picking it up next time we're in the UK.

Kavey said...

It's heavy, will take up half your suitcase!!!

Alicia Foodycat said...

They look really tasty! I love using leftovers cleverly like this.