Milk, oil, flour, breadcrumbs and egg.
Who knew that these five basic ingredients would make one of the most popular Spanish foods:
croquettes
.
In our country, in 2020 the consumption of croquettes increased by 9.4% according to the Spanish Association of Prepared Dishes.
14,691 tons of croquettes
were produced
.
Each Spaniard consumed around
3 kilos of croquettes
in a year, more than 180 round delicacies battered and filled with béchamel per person.
Today is celebrated the International Croquette Day, a meal that deserves a specific day, as they say that everyone likes it and moves millions of euros in the market.
But the croquette has also been affected by the covid crisis.
The Toledo restaurant
Iván Cerdeño
won the award for the best croquette in Spain at Madridfusión 2020. However, its doors remain closed due to the situation of the pandemic.
And although its consumption has increased, the closure of the hotel industry has forced
the production of croquettes
from the large chains
to
decrease
.
The virus has also taken its toll on
Cristina Oria's
catering
.
The cook, who runs three restaurants in Madrid, had one of the most requested catering in the capital until the arrival of the virus.
That is why Oria is aware of the importance of croquette in Spanish culture.
"I am one of the biggest fans of croquettes, I am lactose intolerant and I skip it for some good croquettes.
In a catering it is essential,
" he tells LOC.
"It is a sure value that always triumphs. A catering is for many people and you have to make a menu to get the majority right, so the ham are a success," he explains.
"
I like the traditional ones,
the ones made with a creamy bechamel but without adding anything more than the basic ingredients of the bechamel. My favorites are always the ham ones, although I really like crab and squid in their ink. I prepare some with the old clothes from the stew ".
Just as in catering they only offer ham, in their restaurants they
experiment with other more daring ones on the menu,
although without ever removing the most classic ones from their offer.
In addition, Oria has included the béchamel recipe in her cookbook, as she believes that knowing how to make it without lumps is key.
See this post on Instagram
For those who do not have time to prepare a good béchamel or go to a restaurant due to the covid restrictions, in Spain
there are two companies that almost dominate the monopoly of the manufacture
of frozen croquettes.
They are
Maheso
and
Audensfood
.
The two are companies, competition between them, they were born as family companies in the 70s and thus remain over the decades.
Maheso was created in 1978 after the association of the Martínez, Hernández and Soler families, whose descendants now occupy the positions of founder, CEO and president.
Although they have their own brand, Maheso also
makes white label croquettes
from Dia supermarkets.
In 2020 they made
3.7 million kilos of croquettes.
A very high figure, but one that has not been freed from the covid, because since Maheso, which closed 2019 with 115 million euros in turnover and
500 employees
, they assure that the data for this year will be lower due to the closed hospitality industry.
Because many of the croquettes that the reader consumes in a bar are
frozen and manufactured by third parties
, even if they bear the surname "caseras" on the menu.
In fact, the large processing plants have designed machines that cut the croquettes in an irregular way.
They all weigh the same but
have a different size and shape,
so they look like croquettes made in the bar's kitchen when they arrive, freshly fried, at the customer's table.
That technology also has
Audensfood.
The company was born in 2009 after the merger of Priela and Freigel, two family food companies created in the 70s. They have not gotten rid of the covid either, since in 2020 they produced around 12,000 tons of croquettes, 2,000 less than the previous year.
Pending the 2020 billing data, in 2019 they had
740 employees and billed 120.3 million euros
.
Although the number of hired personnel is the same, they tell LOC that the turnover will be lower.
In the world of precooked croquette there is also a gourmet section in which the cook
Cristina Comenge
saw a market niche.
She is the founder of Oido Cocina Gourmet, a home-made artisan croquettes company that currently sells around four million croquettes a year.
"Croquettes
remind us of our mothers and grandmothers
, of home cooking," reflects Cristina.
Perhaps that is why half of its sales are from the most classic recipe: ham.
"They represent 50% of our sales."
Comenge - which has 37 people on the payroll between the factory and the points of sale -
follows the traditional recipe,
but has found "a Japanese breadcrumbs that is very crunchy and absorbs very little fat."
See this post on Instagram
Because all cooks try to find recipes that everyone likes.
Comenge, for example, offers vegan ones.
"Now
some add gelatins
so that with the heat it melts and explodes in your mouth, but I prefer the traditional recipe", says Cristina Oria.
According to the experts, having a crunchy batter to find a creamy béchamel inside seems the key to the perfect croquette.
The same thing happens to
José Luis Gesalaga,
founder of the Croqueta y Presumida chain, the first croquetry shop in Spain that on the occasion of the international day is going to donate 25,000 croquettes to the Food Bank.
Guesalaga's interest in this cover was born in his parents' butcher shop in Zarautz.
There, his mother began to make croquettes, with such success that they opened more butchers and began to be suppliers of bars and restaurants.
"The croquette is the second most consumed tapa in our country, after the potato omelette.
How was it possible that there were no croquette shops
? So we launched ourselves with the idea of selling fresh, fresh croquettes."
This is how he set up the first Croqueta y Presumida in San Sebastián five years ago.
They now have
31 outlets and employ 75 people.
The expansion throughout Spain and a factory in which they make 200,000 croquettes a day, -more than 70 million a year- of 18 different varieties arrived.
"Our key is to work with
a fresh milk of the day,
we make it with farmhouse milk that is unloaded to us every morning directly at the workshop", he says.
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