There’s an old joke that eternity can be defined as two people and a ham. Now I can attest to an alternative: two people and a turkey. With the brood departing after the holiday weekend and not taking anything with them, there was a passel of left-behinds. A little of this and that and a mound of meat. The carcass had already been cooked down into golden, flavorful stock that made its way into turkey potpie, turkey soup with rice and vegetables, turkey chili. The white meat had been scavenged for sandwiches and salads, and then, finally, all that was left was a small bowl of scraps.

I had been interested in making croquettes for a while but never got around to experimenting with them, so this was the perfect opportunity to purge the pantry of potatoes and use up the modest morsels of cubed root vegetables along with the turkey. Because of the taste and color of the sweet potatoes and carrots, I thought that adding a little curry powder would complement the dish and I was right. These were delicious served on top of baby chard.  (Don’t worry that I posted this so long after Thanksgiving. We had this for dinner a week later.)

Turkey Croquettes

1 cup chopped turkey meat (pulsed in a food processor but not ground)

1 cup mashed potato and root vegetables

1 small onion, diced

Vegetable oil

½ tsp curry powder, or to taste

2 eggs, one for the croquette mix, one for the coating

Flour

Panko or bread crumbs

Prepare the turkey and set aside. Prepare an approximately equal amount of potato mixture, with or without the roots. Leftover mashed potatoes would be fine here. Combine them in a mixing bowl. Slowly cook the onion in the oil until translucent, then add the curry powder, and continue to cook, stirring, until aromatic. Add the curried onions to cool turkey-potato mix and thoroughly combine. Lightly beat one egg and add to the mixture. (I actually added a portion of the second egg since I didn’t need the whole thing for the battering.) Shape into patties

When ready to cook, dip the patties in flour, then in a beaten egg, and finally in panko or bread crumbs. Fry in vegetable oil (1/8-1/4 inch in pan) until well browned, and serve hot.Makes about 4 patties, more or less depending on how large you want them. Mine were 2 x 3 x 1/2 inches.

Categories: Potatoes, ThanksgivingTags: Croquettes, Thanksgiving