A Foolproof Recipe for Korokke

There are dishes we cook, and then there are dishes we cook toward. These are the meals that follow us in memory — sometimes annoyingly, sometimes enticingly — after we’ve washed the dishes, or the next morning over coffee, a quick flickering before we’re battered by the day. These recipes expand and contract, growing right beside us. They’re like the idea of home.

Lately, my home has been built from korokke. The dish is a Japanese iteration of the French croquette: a patty of mashed potatoes, simmered vegetables and protein. That mixture is molded into a mass, until the mounds are breaded and fried to crisp, golden perfection. In ‘‘Japanese Soul Cooking,’’ Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat note, ‘‘While easy to cook at home, korokke in Japan are also commonly sold from stalls and, especially, in butcher shops.’’

When making your own, you could opt for gyu korokke (beef croquettes). Or curry rice korokke, subbing out the potatoes entirely. Kani cream korokke binds crab meat with a béchamel sauce, coated and fried in little logs, perfect for bolting by the truckload. Or, well into your korokke journey, you could turn to its distant, meaty cousin, menchi katsu. No matter your route, korokke is a dish that changes alongside you; whether you’re looking to eat a little less meat, or perhaps trying to impress a date — or even conjuring a comforting meal for one.

No matter your route, korokke is a dish that changes alongside you.

The dish likely made its way to Japan in the late 1800s, but because the country had very little dairy industry, cooks substituted potato fillings for the cream in croquettes. The first mentions of korokke appeared as Yoshoku (Western-style dishes) entered Japan’s culture. Such meals included kare rice (brought to Japan by the British Royal Navy), tonkatsu (which began as thinly sliced pork cuts sautéed and baked in 1899) and Napolitan (which surfaced in Yokohama’s New Grand Hotel, upon the head chef Shigetada Irie’s attempts to emulate a meal of spaghetti and ketchup).

In Japanese, hoku hoku is an expression for dishes that are textured, flavorful, warm and starch-laden; no matter the variety, korokke fit the bill. You could eat one or two or 10 on their own. You could pair them with shredded cabbage. And, with the croquettes nestled between slices of milk bread and lavished in kewpie mayo, a korokke sandwich is a revelation.