Bacon Rice Croquettes

Yes: the farmer's market is closed, the marking is on our desks, and we are back in bacon business. You may see a few other recipe types on here this year -- Cinnilla and I have a hankering to try some Coke cake -- but so far bacon is still winning as our ingredient of choice.

For the first recipe of the year, I turned to Mr. Breakfast and pretty much used their recipe for bacon rice croquettes, with two small changes. I added green onions, and ended up rolling the rice balls in dried bread crumbs (because adding an egg to the bread crumbs as originally suggested just made for a clumpy mess).

BACON RICE CROQUETTES

2 C cooked rice, cooled
3/4 pkg bacon (we cooked the whole package and used the rest for "snacking bacon")
1/3 C freshly grated parmesan
3-4 green onions, finely chopped
1 egg
1/2 C fine dry bread crumbs
1/4 tsp pepper
vegetable oil (I used canola)

Fry bacon & chop into bacon bits. Add together bacon, rice, parmesan, green onions, pepper, egg. Press into small patties, then roll in bread crumbs (I had imperfect luck even with the dry bread crumbs; may have needed another egg in the rice, but at that point I was out of eggs.)



Fill a large pan with an inch or two of oil (I used a big metal stew pot, as I did not want oil splashing all over the kitchen -- please be careful here). Heat oil, then drop in patties and fry for a few minutes on either side. Drain hot croquettes onto a paper towel.



A few of the croquettes did crumble in the pan, but for the most part they held together pretty well -- and they were delicious. The leftovers were also great cold.



Served with blueberry banana pancakes, and Cinnilla's sweet potato bacon hash (recipe incoming).