Croquettes with Smoked Rockfish
A Recipe from Eli Woolery of Carmel
Happy Friday! Today I’m sharing Eli Woolery’s recipe for smoked rockfish croquettes. It’s a fun weekend cooking project, especially if you’re planning to start by smoking your own fish like Eli does. The result makes a great summery meal if you pair it with a big salad—or even two or three salads. (I always feel that the best thing to put on a salad is another salad; for this dish I might pile a peach-tomato salad on top of a green salad. A Caesar would also be nice.) Whatever you choose to pair it with, I hope you enjoy it. Leave a comment to let us all know how it goes!
Smoked Rockfish Croquettes
This recipe is Eli’s twist on Daniel Boulud’s croquettes, which use bacalao (salt cod). It’s based on Portuguese bolinhos and includes potatoes, fresh herbs, and piment d'Espelette (though you could use Aleppo pepper or paprika, if you like). Eli smokes his own rockfish—that method is also below, under the main recipe—but notes that something like smoked trout would be a good substitute. The croquettes are served with sort of faux-aioli (really just a simple, delicious flavored mayo) and a good squeeze of lemon.
For the Aioli
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
Zest from one orange
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the Croquettes
½ pound skinless smoked rockfish fillets (or similar), bones removed
1 cup whole milk
2–3 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
10 garlic cloves—3 smashed, 5 minced, 2 pressed (or minced and crushed into a paste)
1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, minced
1 teaspoon piment d'Espelette (or similar)
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro, leave and thin stems only
1 cup all-purpose flour
1½ cups panko
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
Avocado oil, for frying
Lemon wedges, for serving
Make the Aioli
Combine the mayonnaise, pressed garlic, orange zest, and black pepper in a small bowl. Set the mixture aside in the refrigerator.
Make the Croquettes
Put the rockfish in a large saucepan with the milk, thyme, bay leaf, and smashed garlic cloves. Pour in enough water to cover the fish by ½–1 inch. Bring the mixture up to a simmer and cook it over low heat for 20 minutes, until the fish flakes with a fork.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer the fish to a plate (leaving the milk and seasonings in the pot) and let it cool. Flake the fish, removing any small bones that may have been missed earlier.
While the fish is cooling, add the potatoes to the saucepan and simmer them until tender, about 10 minutes. Using the slotted spoon, transfer the potatoes to a large bowl, then add 2 tablespoons of the cooking liquid. Mash everything into a coarse puree.
Heat the olive oil in a small skillet. Add the shallot and minced garlic and cook them over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 4 minutes. Scrape the mixture into the bowl with the potatoes. Add the smoked fish, cilantro, piment d'Espelette, and egg yolk to the bowl and stir until everything is blended.
Press and roll 1–2 tablespoons of the fish-potato mixture into a ball and set it on a baking sheet or tray lined with wax paper; repeat until you’ve used up all of your mixture. Refrigerate the balls until chilled, at least 30 minutes.
In a shallow bowl, beat the eggs with 1 teaspoon of water. Put the flour and panko into two separate shallow bowls.
Remove the fish-potato balls from the refrigerator. Dredge them in flour, dip them in the beaten egg (coating all sides), and then coat them with the panko. Put the coated croquettes back onto the prepared baking sheet. Prepare a cooling rack over a second baking sheet and pre-heat the oven to 200°F.
Fill a large, deep skillet with ½ inch of avocado oil and heat it until it is shimmering. Working in batches (so you don’t crowd the pan), fry the croquettes over high heat, turning them once or twice, until they’re golden all over, about 4 minutes. Place the croquettes on the cooling rack and set them in the oven to keep warm while you fry the remaining batches.
Serve the croquettes warm with lemon wedges and aioli.
Cured and Smoked Rockfish
This method is how Eli prepares (and preserves) some of the fish he catches while spearfishing. While I’ve specified rockfish here, to be in line with the recipe above, he also uses it for other fish, like ling cod. (After filleting the fish, he uses the bones and other parts for stock, so he can make cioppino.) He notes that if you’re smoking the fish just for the recipe above, you should zest the orange before you slice it and set the zest aside for the aioli.
The method below requires a smoker. Eli uses an electric smoker, similar to this one, but notes that you can also just use a charcoal or gas grill with dry wood chips.
1-2 pounds rockfish filets
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons salt
¼ cup vodka or other neutral spirit
1 orange, sliced
In a small bowl, mix the salt, sugar, and vodka into a loose slurry.
If you have a vacuum sealer, place the filets in a vacuum bag along with this mixture, layer in the orange slices, and seal. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer, you can place the fish in a shallow plastic container with a good lid and do the same. Let the fish cure for 4–24 hours (the longer it cures, the saltier the smoked fish will be).
When the fish is cured, rinse the filets and pat them dry with paper towels.
Prepare a smoker with applewood or cherrywood chips and set it to a low temperature (about 175°F). Smoke the fish for 1½ hours.
The cured, smoked fish can be used right away or packaged in a vacuum-sealed bag and refrigerated for a few weeks (or kept indefinitely in the freezer).
From the Archives
It’s that time of year again—breakfast salad season! I’ll be eating my peach-tomato breakfast salad (really just both fruits, light seasoned) every morning I can while the season lasts.
More California Recipes to Cook This Week
While we’re blessed with fresh produce all year round here, there’s really nothing like summer—and California’s cooks (and publications) are making the most of it. Nick Sharma has a Peach and Thai Basil Clafoutis, Andrea Nguyen at Pass the Fish Sauce has a Windowsill Spritz using homemade peach puree and orgeat, Kristina Cho of Have You Eaten Yet has a Tomato Ginger Steamed Fish, and Betty Williams of Betty Eatz has Waffle Iron Zucchini Frittatas (as part of a series about avoiding turning on her oven during the summer). Over at the LA Times, there’s a guide to roasting Hatch chiles (for all your chile needs), and the San Francisco Chronicle has a gorgeous Strawberry Lemon Trifle. This past week I also tried making Kismet’s Can’t-Take-It-off-the-Menu Cucumber Salad—a combination of shaved cucumber, fresh cherries, rosewater labneh, and za’atar—from their recently-release cookbook, and I’m totally hooked.
Photos: Eli Woolery, Georgia Freedman