The art of cooking. Author: Adam
Perhaps compañero Ponce Piloso is right when he said at the last meeting that we have lost the ability to innovate, the enthusiasm to constantly create, find solutions … Floro thought aloud, sitting on one of the chairs. in the table that was the center of the kitchen-dining room of his house. He fixed his eyes on infinity and continued his self-treatment: I remember the harsh 90s, how many things were invented! We even ate them. The ones that were edible, I mean. Moreover, let’s invite him, because tomorrow is too late!
He got up like spring and went to freerider. This took a few minutes, and then he took out the various ingredients and placed them on the plateau. He began to list aloud, perhaps to cheer himself up, I suppose, and ended almost shouting: Let’s make croquettes!
Floro shook hands with him with extraordinary enthusiasm and continued his monologue: Here is a piece of ham that ended up in a butcher’s shop after two years of disappearance, it seems that now its cycle is the same as for cultural events. Mash the ham with a fork. It’s very simple because the consistency is not very thick, and then we add wheat flour or bread flour and that’s where we start to innovate. There is no wheat flour, but there is cornstarch, which looks like a white powder.
Sprinkling on shredded ham dough, Floro comments: “I’ve been storing this cornstarch since pre-COVID-19 when it was sold at work and no one bought it because it was for custard and since there were packages for instant desserts, no one makes cornstarch custard. Well, no one makes custard anymore because it has sugar in it, and it also has milk and eggs… like croquettes. But instead of milk in this recipe, we will add water, which is also liquid and loosens the dough.
We continue to innovate,” Floro commented and took a deep breath, picking up two eggs and a head of garlic, and continued the story, like in a cooking show. Eggs are used to bind the dough well, and garlic is used to enhance the taste. In this case, before leaving for work this morning, my wife told me not to take any leftover eggs or a single head of garlic. What did he invent for lunch; and that’s where I am. Floro closed his eyes and swallowed hard as he remembered that his wife Elena had been at the end of their meeting the morning paper decided: eggs and garlic, as they say: a tooth for a tooth and an egg for an egg.
Our makeshift cook put the eggs aside and took only a clove from the head of garlic. She put it on her plate and said we won’t use eggs because I only have two, but we can add a little garlic clove because I have more cloves.
He began to mix this paste until he had an almost compact mass, which he formed into small cylinders that reminded us of the legendary buffet croquettes.
He again took the floor: croquettes should be small, because that way they absorb less oil when we go to fry them. Floro paused, looked towards the stove, where the bottle with oil of the current month rested, almost destroyed, and it would not be possible to replace it with another month, that is, every two months. He took another deep breath and answered: but we will not fry these croquettes. They will bake. He placed the container of croquettes on the counter and prepared to turn on the oven. After several attempts, he recalled that the previous evening it was announced on the news that there would be problems with liquefied gas in some areas of the capital. He closed the oven and, as a culmination, said goodbye to his imaginary audience: well, I’ll wait for another opportunity to cook my croquettes, and maybe even my dear wife will have the opportunity to enjoy this intricate dish.
Source: Juventud Rebelde