Dutch Croquetten

These are really yummy. a good tip is to set the mixture in the fridge, let it firm up a bit and it makes it easier to work with. let them cool down, they are hot!! i dipped mine in spicy mustard, yuuuummy!

croqetten normally are made from cheep meat that needs to stew for a long time and will then fall apart in to strings of meat. ground beef is faster but they are even yummer with the stewed meat. when you make them into meat ball sized balls they are called bitterballen, great for partys with mustard.

If you want to make a great kroket here's how you do it. Take a roast (beef in my mind is best) cook it in the crockpot for the day (this is why people don't make krokets often its an all day affair) shred the beef, make a roux, throw in some ketjap manis, mustard (i prefer spicy), roll those bad boys into balls (biterballen) or oblong (kroket). To bread them this is a three step process flour, egg, then bread crumbs. Deep fry. A sign of a good kroket is the breading is separated from the filling after its cooked. There is no true recipe for krokets taste your way through. If you don't like the way it tastes change it.

This is a delicious recipe. It's super easy, and the veal mixture can be made early and kept in the fridge until you're ready to deep fry. I highly suggest this with some spicy mustard dipping sauce, it complements the sweetness of the Croquetten. I did end up using a couple more tablespoons of flour to make it stick together.

very good, the dutch way is to roll them into round balls and eat with hot mustard-

Growing up, our family traditionally ate these by smashing the warm croquetten on buttered bread. Delicious!

Very flavorful, very tender. Be sure to make them small for ease of turning (my husband made mondo croquettes and they fell apart, but were still good). I also just breaded the croquettes, rather than dredging in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.

I found these very close to what you get in holland, i didn't have ground veal so i used ground chicken and they were still very close, next time I will use the idea of using stewed meat, which should make it similar to what you find there. I banked the croquetten instead of frying them and they were very good.

These are very close to what my dutch family ate at Christmas Eve, except we used chicken (instead of veal) and mushrooms minus the chili powder and cheese. When I make these I love using one of those rotisserie chickens from the store and fresh thick sliced button mushrooms sauteed in butter and onions... also if you have some "Maggi" on hand I would use that instead Worcestershire. Once you're finished frying serve w/ toast and ground mustard. YUM! Also these are very easy to freeze and fry later... nice for a quick lunch/ dinner.

I'm sorry, but these just weren't good for us at all. I will not make again.

These are very good, and close to what you can find in Holland (with the exception of cheese). I must agree with other reviewers that stewed/slow-cooked shredded meat is better, more flavorful, and definitely more traditional. The cooking spice, gehaktkruiden, does help with a more authentic flavor, but if you don't have that, you can use curry powder (which is listed here as optional, but definitely worth it), being careful not to add too much. It should be a "behind the scenes" type flavor. I'm not sure why cheese is added in a traditional Dutch Kroketten, but to each his own. These also freeze well, so you can make more for later. :) Thanks, Celly!

I followed the recipe exactly changing veal (don't eat it) to ground chicken and I had nothing but a big sticky mess when I tried to make the rolls to dust with flour and breadcrumbs!! I wanted so much to make them for my dutch daughter in law but glad she was not here to see them turn out a disaster! Finally just made them in some kinda patty so we could eat them instead of wasting the meat. Not too good and probably won't try again at least until I find out what went wrong! sigh. HELP!

i would not use veal! i use chicken and cook it until it's 'shreddable'..also, i use nutmeg for that 'dutch' taste...with the parsley etc...no paprika for me! most important: the rue needs to be pretty thick so you can roll the bitterballen!

AS BITTERBALLEN TOO :) -- UPDATE. 12/2015 Still making them! Step 1-New modification- 1 lb roast, 1 lb ground beef simmer until shreddable beef. Made a more genuine texture. Simmer With broth and water and the seasonings, onions etc. Overshot the worschechire sauce and worked-- don't overthink. 1 pt butter to 1 pt flour and then feel out the flour. And then work in the stock. Then add back in the meats. Chill Step 2- ball and flour, egg, panko+ crumbs, back to egg, back to breading. Step 3- chill again Step 4- can freeze but leave out to thaw and then fry. 350f ORIGINAL REVIEW : 12/2012 5 stars because I love this stuff! But did modify: I did ground beef and used 2 beefy soup bones to make the stock. I will double the beef over the ground as well as triple the roux to get it closer in texture to the real thing. Chilled overnight. For the coating I used equal parts zesty bread crumbs and panko. I will freeze and then bag into portions for the freezer for throughout the year as they are time consuming to make... even when made with love :)

I don't know how long I was to wait for the meat to cool down, but it definitely didn't come out the way it was supposed to. I think you have two choices here. Either prep it the day before and set the cooked meat mixture into the refrigerator overnight or don't pre-cook the veal before shaping it. Although it tasted very good, it was very difficult to make this recipe as outlined.

Being an American with Dutch heritage, I'm drawn to learning recipes of the old country. I've been fortunate to become friends with a wonderful lady who has shared her kitchen with me to experience kroketten assembly. It's quite the process, but so delicious! Just like other regions of the world and their many ingredients to their recipes, there's no one size fits all. Thanks for sharing this recipe, it's a great American English written recipe, which is a great way to start. Danku!

Just like my Granny's .I loved them.

We totally changed it up to our needs. But thank you for getting my Dutch Boyfriend and me off our butts to finally make this Dutch Snack. I came across this recipe while wondering what to do with our Ground Veal that we had on hand. We made Dutch Bitter Balls from it. Same thing, but more traditionalin Holland vending machines. We also tried it on our AIR FRYER.390 deg. 9 minutes on each side.NICE! We found this to be a great starter base - but would like to try the cheap roast that several have mentioned. Thank you again for giving us a starter recipe and inspriration.

Love this recipe! Very similar to those made by my Indonensian's friend's grandmother. Thanks very much for sharing. :)

I have made these with turkey and with beef as well, they all taste awesome

As a person who has eaten my share of croquetten, while these were ok, they were lacking something. My biggest issue was forming them once they were cooled, and while refrigerating helped, they still had a tendency to fall apart so I ended up with some far bigger than I would like. I will try the recipe again another time and see if they turn out better with some tweaks.

I just recently got back from a trip to the Netherlands and still had the taste fresh to my mind. Although they barely taste like the actually croquettes l, they are still wonderful and my family liked them. Just not exactly the same on taste!

These are delicious! They take a little work but I always get excited when I make them because they are so good!