Croquettes Baked in Lemon Juice

If you read my polenta recipe below and wondered what you could possibly do with a pound of sirloin that you used to make a sauce yet did not eat, here is one possible answer: Crocchette al Limone, also credited to Giuliani Bugialli from The Fine Art of Italian Cooking. The breaded beef croquettes are fried and then briefly baked in lemon juice, and are very tasty and not too difficult to make.

Start with your cooked beef, 10 sprigs of Italian parsley and 2 large cloves of garlic. Using a food processor, grind up the meat, garlic, and leaves of the parsley into a very fine mixture.

Then cut the crusts off of 4 pieces of white bread.

Bring 1 cup of milk to a boil and add the bread to the pan, stirring for about 7 minutes to form a cooked paste.

Combine the meat mixture with 3 large eggs, 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese, freshly grated nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste.

Next add the cooled bread/milk paste and mix very well.

You will need some bread crumbs to coat the croquettes. Bugialli stresses that the quality of bread crumbs is very important here, should be made from "first-class bread, unflavored, and slightly toasted". I made mine from a good baguette and toasted them in a pan on the stovetop.

Heat 1 quart of vegetable oil (2 parts corn oil to 1 part sunflower oil is recomended) to 375 degrees, as well as your oven. Spread your bread crumbs out on a plate and shape about 2 tablespoons of your meat mixture into a ball, flattening it as you press it gently into the bread crumbs.

When all the croquettes are ready, fry them a few at a time until lightly golden all over, about 1 minute.

Drain the croquettes on paper towels.

Squeeze the juice from 4 large lemons.

Arrange the croquettes in a single layer in a glass or crockery baking dish. Pour the lemon juice all over them, sprinkle on a little salt, and bake at 375 degrees for 5 minutes.

Serve immediately. We garnished ours with parsley and hard-boiled eggs.