“a small fried food roll containing usually as main ingredients mashed potatoes, and/or minced meat (veal, beef, chicken, or turkey), shellfish, fish, vegetables, and soaked white bread, egg,onion, spices and herbs, wine, milk, or any of the combination thereof, sometimes with a filling, often encased in breadcrumbs.

The croquette is usually shaped into a cylinder or disk, and then deep-fried. The croquette (from the French croquer, “to crunch”) was a French invention that gained worldwide popularity, both as a delicacy and as a fast food.”

In Miami, the Mecca of Cuban food, you can find every variety of croqueta imaginable. In this ongoing segment of CubanFoodMiami.com, we will be reviewing every croqueta in South Florida, and letting you know which ones are worthy, and which ones should be just left for the dog.

Galindo Latin American :

The croquetas at Galindo Latin America, at first glace, are enticing. The shape of the croquetas is a bit odd; they’re pretty long and thin compared to any of the other ones I’ve seen.  Attractive color, nice and consistently light brown throughout; the crust has a very nice texture – chewy but still soft. However, the filling pretty much ruins anything that they did correctly elsewhere. It’s super dense, pasty and unappealing lacking any real flavor.

It seems that there is more flour than ham in the filling, which is surprising because as soon as you walk into the place the first thing you notice is all the cured hams hanging from the ceiling. The nutmeg is also a little heavy handed which gives the croquetas an off flavor reminiscent of a sort of savory eggnog, which can’t be good.

Versailles :

Versailles has always made a great croqueta and although I remember them being better before, they still do. The crust is nice and thick, tender, chewy and light in color. The filling is dense and creamy, not pasty, with pretty big chunks of ham running through it.

The filling is light in color and very flavorful. It’s seasoned correctly, made with seemingly good quality ground ham and has just a touch of nutmeg; not enough to distinguish it, but enough to know that there’s a little something extra in the mix. These croquetas still remind me of my childhood, so it’s good to know that Versailles has been consistently producing a tasty product.

La Palma :

I heard about the croquetas at La Palma while, oddly enough, having croquetas at another location and decided to give them a taste; am I glad I did. They look great; light brown tender exterior that holds together well and perfectly compliments the filling.

The filling is silky, has a good amount of ham in it and, hold on to your seats, actually tastes a lot like ham. Why is it so hard to find a ham croqueta that tastes like ham? This one is salty and briny and has a slight tang to it that reminds me of ham rind. It’s perfectly seasoned and delicious; probably my favorite thus far.

La Esquina del Lechon :

The croquetas from La Esquina del Lechon were a disappointment from the moment they came out. They have a dark, greasy, crunchy exterior that separates from the filling; if you were to hold the croqueta up, holding it from one of the ends, it would just fall apart.

The filling is lackluster, very liquid and mushy without much depth of flavor. The entire thing is very monotonous; didn’t like it at all.