Baked Indonesian Croquettes - Kroket Panggang

Love Indonesian croquettes so much, but not in love with the idea of deep frying (as always).
I wonder if I could get away with baking it...if I could bake shrimp cakes, surely I can bake these too?
Yayaya, so I thought.

Here's how I made my version, yields about 6 large croquettes:

Stuffing
- 1/2 cup of minced meat (beef/pork/chicken/corned beef/etc)
- 1/2 cup of mixed vegetables (I used frozen green peas, diced carrot and corn kernels)
- 1 small clove of garlic, finely minced
- 1 small clove of shallot, finely minced
- salt, white pepper, sugar, ground nutmeg, olive oil
- Cheddar cheese, cut into 1x1x1 cm cubes (optional)

Saute garlic and shallot, add minced meat let cook until almost done, add mixed veggies, season and cook until done. Set aside. Keep the cheddar cheese cubes refrigerated

Potato part
- 4 large potatoes
- salt, pepper, sugar, butter, ground nutmeg, milk powder
- egg, beaten
- breadcrumbs
- olive oil

Bake potatoes until soft enough to mash (about 2 hours in 180C oven). I've tried boiling/microwaving before, but the result was just too watery....

Once soft, mash potatoes, add 1 tsp butter, 2 tsp milk powder (skip if you don't have, it's not worth buying a whole tin of milk powder), season with salt, pepper, sugar, and ground nutmeg, mix well.

Assembly
Grab a heaping tbsp of potato, add mixed veggie and meat filling in the middle, add a cube of cheddar cheese, cover with another tbsp of potato, roll into an oval-ish ball shape. Continue until you've finished all the potatoes. You might end up with leftover filling, feel free to eat it with rice. I also ate all of the leftover cheddar cheese cubes :D

Eggwash the croquettes and roll them into breadcrumbs. Lay them in baking sheet/plate and refrigerate for a couple of hours (my impatient self skipped this step and kept opening my oven to check on my croquettes, so they cracked and went out of shape T_T).


Baking
Preheat oven to 200C, line a baking sheet with foil (if your baking sheet is all burnt like mine), lightly grease with olive oil. Line croquettes on baking sheets, leaving some space in between, brush them lightly with olive oil or melted butter, bake until golden brown.

Or...of course, you can also deep fry them :D

See I made a tiny croquette ball? It doesn't have any meat/veggie filling, just a cube of cheddar cheese and it tasted fantastical! I'm gonna make these tiny babies next time.

Despite the cracks and the flattened bottoms, when I took these out of the oven, I could still kinda mold them back into a decent shape...and they get firmer once they've cooled down...and they tasted good. I will try perfecting them again soon.

Now, I really have to show you this...
SC's idea of cool food styling is...

of course, sticking the parsley into the croquette like a mini tree :D
He went mad when I rolled my eyes and refused to take this shot.

What do you think? You likey?