Pane con le crocchè is the Palermo street sandwich built on the fried potato croquette rather than the chickpea fritter. Crocchè, called cazzilli in the city, are mashed potato seasoned with parsley and sometimes a little cheese, rolled into short fat cylinders, breaded or floured, and deep-fried. Loaded hot from the vat into a soft sesame roll, several at a time, they are the whole filling. The defining quality is the split between shell and centre: the fry gives the crocchè a crisp, faintly bronzed crust, and inside it stays soft, almost fluffy, so the bite is a firm break followed by a warm starchy give. This is a different texture from the panelle in the next roll along, which shatter thin where the crocchè yields thick.
The craft is the potato, the shaping, and the heat of the oil. The mash is worked dry and bound so the cylinders hold their shape and do not slump or burst in the fat, and they are rolled to a size that fries through to the centre before the crust goes too dark. The oil has to be hot enough to set that crust fast and seal the soft interior, and the crocchè go into the roll straight from the vat while the contrast of crisp shell and steaming middle is still there. The sesame roll is plain and slightly sweet because its only job is to carry a hot, oily, just-fried filling, and lemon and salt are the only dressing wanted, the acid lifting what is otherwise a rich, soft potato. They do not keep; a crocchè that has waited has gone dense and the roll slack.
The named turns stay on the same Palermo street and the same fryer: the roll loaded with chickpea panelle instead, the doubled panelle e crocchè build, and the wider family of pani câ meusa and the sfincione roll that run on the identical logic of a vat or a pot poured into soft bread. Each of those is a different load in the same kind of roll, and each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.