Italian American Salami & Cheese Potato Crocchette

They kinda remind me of Hushpuppies

These look pretty great, but do the flavors match?

Time: 1 hour 50 minutes

Ingredient Availability: 4/5

Difficulty: 1/5

Sometimes the pictures do all the talking when it comes to choosing a recipe to make. This is one of those recipes. Not only did the photos of this dish look delicious, the name sounds delicious too. Meat, cheese, and potatoes have to be good together. On top of that, it’s all deep fried. I just had to make this one and that’s exactly what I did.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

You may have a hard time finding Potato starch

I didn’t leave anything out of this recipe. Everything except for the potato starch was pretty easy to find and a typical grocery store.

Tools:

• Fine mesh strainer, potato ricer, or food mill

• Sharp knife

• Fine Grater

Cooking Review:

Cooking potatoes: 50 minutes

To cook the potatoes, they were added to a pot along with the aromatics (garlic, pepper corns, and bay leaves) and covered with water. I added a little less than a third of a cup of salt to the water before turning the heat to high and bringing it all to a simmer. After about 11 minutes, the water was simmering. I then lowered the temperature to keep it at a low simmer for 35 minutes, when I was able to pierce the potatoes with a fork. The potatoes were transferred to a plate to cool.

Cooling, peeling, and preparing other ingredients: 17 minutes

While the potatoes simmered, I cut up the salami and provolone cheese and grated the parmigiano reggiano. I let the potatoes cool for about 11 minutes, at which they were just barely cool enough to peel, which took about 6 minutes.

Mixing all ingredients: 24 minutes

Once the potatoes were peeled, I pressed them through a fine mesh strainer using the back of a spoon, which took about 7 minutes. I then added the rest of the ingredients (excluding the oil, obviously) and mixed it all together until combined. After about 6 minutes of forming, I was left with 16 Crocchette ready to be fried.

Frying: 8 minutes

Once the oil came to temperature, the frying went by very quickly. I fried mine in 3 batches, each taking 2 minutes to become golden brown. While frying, I delicately agitated the Crocchette to ensure even color. To finish them I sprinkled some salt on top.

Analysis:

These are a pretty nice snack. The exterior is nice and crisp while the interior is very soft, while still maintaining the texture of a potato. As far as flavors go, cheese is the most prominent one. While salami contributes a nice chewy texture here and there, I’m not so sure that it added very much flavor in my case. I will note that I can taste the garlic in the potatoes from cooking them along with the garlic, which I like. Overall, the flavors are fairly light, but pleasant. If the intensity of the flavors were amped up a bit I would give this recipe a 9/10, but because they are a little muted, I’ll give this one a 7/10. They are pretty easy to make, but fall a little short on flavor. Maybe just adding a little extra salt is what this one needs.

Who doesn't like a nice cheese pull?