I hope everyone had a great weekend. We enjoyed our stay-cation in Half Moon Bay as I mentioned in my previous post. Half Moon Bay is located along the coast line of California and it’s about 23 miles south of San Francisco. From where we live, it only takes us 30 minutes or so to get there.
It’s a rustic coastal town with amazing Pacific Ocean views. We enjoyed eating lots of seafood, swimming in the very warm indoor pool, and having a nice Sunday brunch at the hotel. I shared some of the food pictures from my iPhone on my facebook page, but my husband will be posting his very first (and last?) post about our Sunday brunch review tomorrow on Just One Cookbook. Although it’s not our regular posting day, I hope you will come and say hello to my husband.
When I posted Korokke (Japanese croquette that is usually made of potato and meat) recipe on my website about a month ago, I received a request of Japanese Creamy Croquette from one of the readers. I’m sorry it took a long time for me to post this recipe, but thank you for patiently waiting for this recipe and I hope you like it.
Both kinds of croquettes are very popular in Japan. Since my dad likes potatoes, my mom usually cooked regular croquette and it was more like a treat to eat creamy kind. This time I put corns inside so my kids will enjoy eating them more since they are crazy about corn.
To be honest, this is not easy to make. The mixture tends to be very sticky and it’s very hard to make ball/patty shapes. But I’m very sure, and my family would also agree, that it’ll be worth your effort. Enjoy!
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Korokke (Japanese croquette that is usually made of potato and meat) and Japanese Creamy Croquette are very popular in Japan. Since my dad likes potatoes, my mom usually cooked regular croquette and it was more like a treat to eat creamy kind. This time I put corns inside so my kids will enjoy eating them more since they are crazy about corn.
- 1 onion
- 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour (plain flour) (⅓ cup = 50 g)
- 1¼ cup milk (at room temperature)
- 1 cube vegetable bouillon
- ½ tsp kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; Use half for table salt) (more if you don’t use bouillon)
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 can crab meat (1 can = 6 oz, 170 g) (or fresh crab meat, squeeze the water out)
- ½ cup corn kernels
- all-purpose flour (plain flour)
- 2 large eggs (50 g each w/o shell) (beaten)
- 2 Tbsp neutral-flavored oil (vegetable, canola, etc)
- Panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
- neutral-flavored oil (vegetable, canola, etc) (for deep frying)
- Cut onion in half and slice the onion with a slicer.
- In a large non-stick frying pan, heat butter on medium-low heat. Add sliced onion and sauté until translucent.
- When the onion is translucent, turn off the heat. Then add flour and mix well. Turn the heat back on and stir constantly for 1-2 minutes.
- Pour the milk in, a little at a time, stirring in order to eliminate lumps and to make a smooth, thick Béchamel sauce. Keep stirring over low heat for 5-10 minutes. You want your sauce to be the consistency of a thick mustard.
- Add a vegetable bouillon cube, salt, and pepper and mix well.
- Add crab meat and corn and cook off as much moisture as possible while stirring. Take off from heat and allow to cool.
- Spread the mixture on the bottom of a baking pan. Cover with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge for 1 hour. If you don’t chill the mixture enough, the croquette might explode while deep frying from the moisture.
- After 1 hour, prepare the three bowls: one with flour, one with 2 beaten eggs (add 2 Tbsp. oil in here), and one with Panko. Divide the chilled mixture into 10 equal portions.
- Lightly coat your hands with olive oil and scoop each portion out to make a small round cake, followed by dredging in the flour, diping into the egg, and then coating with Panko. Repeat this process with all the croquettes. Cover them with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge for at least 10 minutes.
- In a large non-stick frying pan, heat ½ inch of oil on medium-high heat. When it’s hot (180C/350F), fix the shape of the croquettes and slip them into the oil to deep fry. Do not crowd the pan (maybe 4-5 at a time) and do not disturb them until the bottom side is golden brown. Then flip and wait till the other side also turns golden brown. Transfer the croquettes onto paper towel and serve immediately.
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
Hi Nami!
I hope you have enjoyed your summer trip to Japan. (I’m so very jealous, because it’s my dream to go there.) I have been searching the site for information on an item that was included in my bento box at our local Obon Odori Festival last weekend (August 3rd). I think these might be the items, because they had a very creamy filling with corn inside. I was wondering are the creamy korokke ever made without the crab, and with just corn? I ask because I truly couldn’t taste any crab flavor in the ones I had. They were delicious, oval shaped, creamy on the inside and crispy fried outside. I could taste onion and recognized the Panko too. I think the yummy things I had were probably korokke, but I’m not sure. I thought you might be able to tell me if creamy ones without crab are usual. Or maybe it’s that the crab flavor is so mild that I didn’t notice it? In any case, thanks for everything. The blog is informative and enjoyable every time I visit, no matter the topic. 🙂
Thank you, I had a really great time with my family in Japan. It’s so cold here in SF that I truly miss “summer”. 🙂 I hope you get to visit Japan one day!
We have both “Cream Corn Korokke” and “Kani (crab) Korokke” and they are usually creamy inside the korokke. So yes, you can make without crab too! It’s a bit pain to make as they are supposed to be “creamy” inside panko crusted layer outside…but it’s delicious! It’s almost treat in my house as I don’t make them often compared to regular Korokke.
I’m really happy that you enjoy my site. Thank you so much for your feedback and kind comments! xo 🙂
I notice some people use half-and-half in place of milk; do you think it makes a big difference?
Hi Amy! I apologize for my slow response. Yes, you can use half and half – it will be more creamier due to cream in it. It’ll be more flavorful too! But it’s already thick, so you can reduce the flour a bit. 🙂
These look so tasty!
Just wondering, is it possible to bake croquettes in the oven instead of deep frying?
Hi Lava! Technically I think you can. I haven’t tried yet, but using my Baked Tonkatsu method, it should work… However, unlike tonkatsu, the creamy filling is very soft, so I’m not sure how the shape will stay while baking in the oven. Please let me know how it turns out if you decided to bake. 🙂
These crab croquette look and sound amazing. I want to make them real soon. Nami the pictures don’t seem to appear,well the cooking ones don’t, I really want to try out this recipe and the pictures do help a lot so if you could please fix them that would be great. Also love your recipes, I’ve tried a lot of them out and my family loves them.
Hi Tatiana! Thank you for bringing this image issue to my attention. I’ve fixed it. 🙂
I’m so happy to hear your family enjoy my recipes. Thanks so much for your kind feedback!
Hi Nami-san,
So based on your ingredients, it says that you need 1/2 tsp. of salt and more if you’re not using the bouillon cube. Does that mean that the vegetable bouillon cube isn’t necessary for the recipe? Thanks a lot! 🙂
Hi Megumi! I stopped using bouillon cubes and make the same dish without using one. It adds saltiness to the dish, therefore I suggested that additional salt to taste might be necessary if you don’t use bouillon. You can omit it if you’re not using bouillon in your cooking. In Japan, it’s very common to use bouillon and I used to use it too… but not any more… try to be healthier. 😀
Hi Nami-san!
Thanks a lot! I’ll be sure to make this for my family sometime next week! 🙂
The recipe calls for 1 cube vegetable bouillon, but I noticed that there are 2 sizes of bullion cubes available. I think the more common size is 0.13 ounces and the bigger one that Knorr makes is 0.33 ounces. Which size vegetable bouillon cube is the correct one to use?
Hi Alan! I don’t use bullion cube anymore so I am not familiar with the size, but from the picture, it looks like this one is the square cube one. 🙂
クリームコロッケ大好きだから作ってみたけどパティを作るのににとても柔らかくてとても困難しました。もっとよく冷やすか、小麦粉をたすかして練習してみます。味はとても美味しかった。なんか良い方法ないかな？こおらせてみると水っぽくなるだろうしな、
エリカさん、このレシピ作ってみて下さってありがとうございます。そうですね、柔らかいので、丸めるのが簡単ではないですね。フォークを使ったりする人もいますが、私は粗熱をとってから冷やして少し固くなった段階で丸めるようにしてます。揚げた後にクリーミーに仕上げるには、小麦もあまり多く入れない方が良い気がします。もう少し冷やしみてみたらよくなりそうですか？
These are absolutely amazing! I made them, tonight, with some steamed rice, homemade miso soup, and pickled cucumbers. So delicious! They seem work intensive, but are quite easy and so worth the effort!
Thank you for the recipe! I’ve been visiting your site for years and finally decided to review one of your delicious recipes. 😊
Hi Miki! Thank you so much for trying out this recipe! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. It’s a bit time consuming but yeah it’s worth your time and effort at the end. Thank you for your kind feedback and for reading my site for a long time! xo
I learned this recipe from you awhile ago, but now I have kids, my wife was wondering if this recipe is possible to be baked? Will the cream crab filling stand up to baking? If so, what needs to be modified? And thank you for always the prompt replies.
Hi Boyd! The filling is always so soft to handle, so make sure you chill the filling so when you divide up it’s easy to divide. Follow the same technique as my baked katsu recipe:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/baked-tonkatsu/
Hope you enjoy the recipe!
p.s. Sorry for my late response – I’ve been away from work after surgery.