Bitterbal (Aruba Meat Croquettes)

Ingredients 3/4 lbs ground beef 1 tbsp. parsley, chopped 3 tbsp. butter 3 tbsp. flour 3/4 cup beef broth salt and pepper to taste fine cracker crumbs (about 1 cup) 1 egg 2 tbsp. water oil for frying Directions Cook the meat in a little bit of oil until done. Drain and discard fat. Put in a bowl and add salt and pepper to taste. Make a white sauce by mixing the butter, flour and beef broth. If the beef broth is not hot, you may have to heat it to make the three ingredients combine. Add the white sauce and the chopped parsley to the meat. Mix well. Let chill. Shape mixture into balls about 1" in diameter. Roll the balls on bread crumbs. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and mix with 2 tbsp. water. Pass the balls through the egg recoat with cracker crumbs. Deep fry the balls until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Serve with mustard. Creator Comment These meat croquettes were not very difficult to make and they were quite good. Though I'd never made anything like them before they reminded me a little bit of Sweedish meatballs, though in this case the sauce is mixed-in with the meat rather than served separately. You are supposed to serve them with some tangy mustard, I chose a honey-dijon one and it went very well with them. The croquettes seem to be usually made with any kind of leftover cooked meat (roast beef or veal, ham, chicken or shrimp) which is then ground. As I didn't have any such thing, I bought ground beef and cooked it. The recipe below reflects this, but you can use whichever meat you like. The original recipe calls for them to be deep-fried. If you have a deep frier or want to deep fry, by all means do it. I didn't because I felt that would be a waste of oil, so I pan-fried them in about 1 cm. of peanut oil (as the recipe did nto specify what oil to use and peanut oil is very frequently used in the Caribbean). This meant, however, that I had to keep turning them and that was a pain. Still, I'd probably make them again. This recipe is enough for four servings as an hors d'oeuvre.