Curried Popcorn & Homemade Croquetas

It seems as if most of everyone's energy went into Christmas this year, and when New Year's Eve rolled around a lot of people (at least the ones I spoke to) realized that they had absolutely nothing planned.  Our plans initially involved parking the car at a Metrorail station and taking the Metrorail to Downtown Miami to watch the fireworks and the orange drop at Bayfront Park.  However, once I received news that Ludacris was headlining a free concert, I decided that I didn't want to deal with the mess that is any free hip hop concert at Bayfront Park.

New Year's Eve plans involved a bottle of Mumm sparkling rosé, some popcorn, and a couple of homemade Cuban ham croquettes.  I wanted to jazz up my popcorn, so I threw together some seasonings to make a curried popcorn, and the results were so good that I decided I need to make a huge batch to keep around for movie nights.  You can play around with the proportions to get a flavor you prefer.  Drizzle the freshly popped kernels with the desired amount of butter (or ghee if you want to be really Desi), and sprinkle the seasoning to taste.  You'll see the popcorn turn a beautiful light golden color, and each bite will have a good balance of warm spices, sweetness, and a touch of heat from the chili flakes.

• Equal parts curry powder (not Madras), Aleppo chili flakes (or any chili flake), and dark brown sugar
• salt to taste

Our other project that evening was making homemade Cuban ham croquettes from all the leftover Christmas Eve ham we had in the refrigerator.  John had put it into the food processor to mince and we had the choice of either ham salad or croquettes.  I'm glad we decided on option #2, and considering how easy they are to make, I'm thinking of making a large batch to freeze for future parties.  We perused a few recipes, including one from a Cuban abuela's blog.  The recipe we ended up using was from 3 Guys From Miami, whom I consider to be authorities on Cuban food in Miami.  In addition to turning out croquetas that are far better than anything from any restaurant or bakery, their recipe was very easy to follow (see recipe here) and yielded a very manageable ham paste that was very easy to form into the recognizable logs.  I like how they use a mixture of flour and bread crumbs for the coating, but there are a couple of minor things that needed to be tweaked with this recipe, as well as a few pointers:

1. If you like a smoother, softer filling, use half the amount of breadcrumbs that the recipe requires for the ham paste and make sure to chill the paste very well before forming it into logs.
2. A teaspoon (give or take) of finely minced garlic in the roux would really take these croquettes from great to phenomenal...and what's a good Cuban recipe without garlic?
3. The proportions for the breading are perfect, but it needs to be tripled, as I found that I ran out of breading after only coating 1/3 of the croquettes
4. Similarly, the egg wash mixture should be doubled
5. I replaced the bread crumbs with ground Ritz crackers for the first 1/3, and the last 2/3 were coated with panko.  Both coatings yielded wonderful crusts.
6. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before, but use a fork to roll the croquettes in the egg wash to avoid coating your fingers in egg and breading and having to constantly wash your hands.