About 40,000 people are expected this week in Boise to attend Jaialdi, the six-day long Basque festival last celebrated a decade ago. Festivities include traditional dances, sports competitions, drinks and, of course, lots of food.
One of the most popular tapas to order at the festival? Croquetas!
The deep-fried-balls of masa — a thick bechamel made of butter, flour and milk — flavored with a choice of meat, like chorizo, ink fish, codfish, Jamón, are served as tapas and meant to be shared.
The ones served at Bar Gernika, a corner pub on the Basque Block in downtown Boise, are made with ground chicken thighs and onions. Velvety on the inside, crispy on the outside.
Owner Jeff May said the fritters are the most popular items on their menu.
On a normal week, the bar sells a couple thousand of them. But for Jaialdi, May said he thinks they’ll get through 20,000.
The team at Bar Gernika has been getting ready for the festival for months. First, he ordered more cookware and supplies.
“Then this last month, we've just been trying to double up working seven days a week, trying to build up as much prep as possible,” he said.
In the next six days of the festival, May predicted they’ll make a month’s worth of business.
On the weekend before events kicked off, while trucks were dropping off supplies on the sidewalk and workers were setting-up string-lights between the trees lining the Block, Mey and his team were hard at work rolling the masa dough into balls, prepping about 8000 croquetas ahead of time.
The popularity of croquetas is not a mystery.
For cook Becky Diven, who’s been working at Bar Gernika for 26 years, the butter is probably what does it.
“It's basically deep fried gravy,“ she said. “It’s creamy and it's delicious.”
Ahead of the festival, she’s hard at work behind the bar’s small kitchen, cooking down a sticky mixture of masa in a large pot, stirring it with a giant wooden paddle until it’s thick enough to be rolled into balls.
Freezing croquetas messes up the texture, so she’ll be making fresh dough, in 15 to 20 pound batches, a bunch of times during Jaialdi.
“I’ll be doing it about nine more times this week,” she explained.
Once cooled off overnight, the dough is ready to be hand-rolled.
“Then it goes in the egg wash and then the panko, and then it has to chill again so when we put it in the fryer it doesn't explode,” Diven explained.
As for what drink to order with those croquetas? That’s an easy one: “Kalimotxo!”
The party starts Tuesday evening on the Basque Block and runs until Sunday.
