A vegetarian main dish for a special meal that can easily be made vegan for a Thanksgiving entree.

We loved croquettes when I was growing up! But we usually got them only a few days after Thanksgiving, or if Mom made a big roasting chicken and had a bunch of “little meat” left over. They are labor intensive, but fun to make once in a while. She would pluck every possible piece of poultry from the carcass: the back, the ends of the wings, the neck, and the tail, which she affectionately called “the piece that jumped over the fence last.”

Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside

She loved making these, and said they needed to be crisp on the outside and oozing wonderfully soft on the inside. All of the time when we were growing up, her deep fat frying was done in a little wire basket…