Spinach & Napa Cabbage Eggless Croquettes

Vegetable croquettes with dipping sauce or chutney can be a wonderful appetizer or snack. Typically, potatoes and carrots are mashed with some spices and binding agent (usually eggs), possibly breadcrumbs for crisp crunchy skin, and deep fried.

This recipe uses home-garden veggies: spinach, spring onions, and radish; plus some Napa cabbage and carrots; no eggs, just heels of bread loaves, rice flour, and water for binding.



As I often mention, à la Owl in Tearwater Tea, the heels - the end-slices of sliced bread loaves - loathed and discarded cruelly by one and all, have a sad fate indeed. Which is precisely why I like to use them for binding, even for making breadcrumbs and croutons.

For a quick Father's Day snack, I served these vegetable croquettes with fresh home-garden mint chutney.

Ingredients
1 cup finely chopped Napa cabbage
½ cup finely grated carrots
1 cup chopped fresh spinach leaves
optional: finely grated radish and chopped radish greens
2 or 3 end slices of bread loaf
¼ cup rice flour (more or less)
1 Tbsp smoked ground paprika
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp coriander powder (optional)
salt to taste
water as needed (a Tbsp at a time)

Canola oil for deep frying

Preparation

1. Combine the ingredients and knead to a soft dough that can be shaped into small logs
2. Deep fry in oil till golden brown and cooked through on the inside

Mint Chutney

2 cups fresh mint leaves
¼ cup pickled jalapeno rings (less if preferred), with a bit of the vinegar it is pickled in

Combine the ingredients and blend till smooth, adding a little water if needed. Serve fresh.