Kani Kurimu Korokke

For our three year anniversary I wanted to make something special and I just saw the recipe for kani kurimu korokke or crab cream croquette at Runny999's youtube channel. We often talk about cooking crab since Naoko's mom served it two years ago, but never got to it. So what better occasion than our special night?

White cream sauce & crab (2 people)

• 5 tbs flour
• 60 g butter
• 4 dl milk
• 200 g crab meat
• 150-200 g onion (minced)
• 4 tbs white wine

Chop the onion finely (mince) and stir fry in a little butter over low heat until golden brown. This might take a little while so here is a good opportunity to clean out the crab from its shell. The easiest way is to use scissors to cut open the shell. Then just crumble the meat into a bowl. Remove the onion to a separate bowl when ready.

Now it is time to make the white cream sauce. Melt the butter in the pan at medium heat. Add flour in three or four batches and mix well after each one. You will now have a thick batter. Add the milk, just like with flour, in three or four batches and mix until smooth. Transfer the sauce to a separate bowl.

Add a some oil to the pan and stir fry a few of the crab shells for a minute and then add the white wine. Turn off the heat after 20 seconds and remove shells when the liquid has reduced somewhat. Add the crab meat and onions and just mix (without heat).

Blend the crab mix into the cream sauce and put it into the freezer for about 20 minutes. This gives a rather thick and easy-to-work-with batter. You can already cut the batter into equal parts. Put a little oil on your hands and form the batter into rolls or hamburgers according to your liking. Normally these are supposed to be deep fried, but we don't have the right equipment and we prefer not to deep fry as it's also rather messy. A good alternative is to just stir fry in a bit of extra oil. Cover the korokke rolls in flour, then dip into beaten egg and finally cover in Japanese panko or bread crumbs. Stir fry two at a time and add oil as needed. The result is a golden brown korokke, crispy on the outside and creamy inside.

Serve with Japanese rice, finely shredded cabbage and tonkatsu sauce. At our anniversary we drank freshly pressed pineapple juice, but this dish would go as well with water, beer or white wine. Itadakimasu!