A finger food that should be served with good white wine, this dish of deep fried mashed potato balls stuffed with mozzarella was inspired by Scotch eggs. If you haven’t heard of Scotch eggs, they are hard-boiled eggs wrapped with ground meat then deep fried. When sliced, you get a cross section of egg yolk, egg white and meat. I tried making Scotch eggs a couple of times and the ground meat coating always burst during frying. I’m more successful with mashed potatoes and cheese.
These mozzarella stuffed deep fried mashed potato balls contains no meat. Just cubes of mozzarella cheese wrapped with cooled mashed potatoes that are coated with panko (Japanese bread crumbs) before going into the hot oil.
The three main ingredients: cheese, mashed potatoes and panko. If you’ve been using regular bread crumbs all your life, try panko (Japanese bread crumbs). It’ll change the way you think about bread crumbs.
Your mashed potatoes should be stiff so that when stuffed with a mozzarella cube, you can wrap the mashed potatoes around it and still hold its shape.
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Once all the mozzarella cubes have been wrapped in mashed potatoes, the balls are rolled in panko.
Then fry. In batches, if necessary to ensure that the temperature of the oil does not drop too much.
It takes less than a minute to get the mozzarella balls to to turn golden and crisp. Drain well before serving.
Mozzarella stuffed deep fried mashed potato balls
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups mashed potatoes (see recipe) I added chopped parsley to mine) which must be rather stiff for shaping
- 10 pieces 1/2-inch cubes of mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup panko
- 2 cups vegetable oil for deep frying
Instructions
- Start heating the vegetable oil in a wok.
- Set aside a teaspoonful of mashed potato.
- Take a heaping teaspoonful of mashed potato and form into a ball.
- Using your thumb, make a deep indentation at the center then push in a mozzarella cube.
- Lightly push the mashed potato upward to cover the cheese.
- Repeat until you have 10 mozzarella stuffed balls.
- Roll the mashed potato balls in panko lightly patting to make the bread crumbs stick.
- Take the reserved mashed potato, form into a ball and drop in the hot oil. If it browns too fast, turn down the heat and wait a few minutes for the temperature to drop a bit.
- If the ball sinks and stays there, the oil is not hot enough. Turn up the heat and wait a minute or two for the temperature to rise.
- Drop the mozzarella stuffed mashed potato balls one by one into the hot oil. It should take less than a minute for the bread crumbs to turn crisp and golden brown, and for the mozzarella to melt inside the mashed potato.
- Scoop out the fried mashed potato balls, let any excess oil drip then serve the mozzarella balls at once.
Recipe Notes
The frying is only meant to melt the cheese and make the bread coating crisp. There is really nothing to “cook” because all the ingredients are already ready to eat. So, don’t fry the balls for too long. Don’t think that it is safer to cook longer at a low temperature rather than risk burning the bread crumbs with a too high temperature. That’s why it is important to test the oil first before dropping in the cheese stuffed balls. The quick frying is essential so that the mashed potato’s texture stays light and fluffy. If fried for too long, the potato will soak up too much oil. Worse, the mozzarella might start oozing out of the mashed potato.
Chickpeas (garbanzos) soup
perfect timing! my sisters and I are planning to go picnic over our parent’s house, they requested for cordon bleu (their all-time favorite), but i’m still considering giving them other menu for the weekend. i think i’m going to surprise them with this one and the chili fries i’ve read a while ago. too much potato eh? but they will surely love this! esp. our kids. hahah! thanks for sharing! God bless you more!
In our house, there’s no such thing as too much potatoes and cheese hehehehe
Hi Connie,
This is great especially for my family who loves snacking every now and then. At sa aking bunso na cheese-lover. Thanks again!
Hi Ms. Connie, ano pong recipe nyo dyan sa mashed potatoes? Thanks
Please use the search box. There are plenty of mashed potatoes recipes in the archive.
10 balls lang talaga niluto mo? :-) bitin yan
2 lang kami noh hehehe
hi ms connie :) love your site so much na ginagawa ko yung mga recipes mo lalo na yung mga tips. cook-wanna-be kasi ako (frustration-in-life-hehehe!). asked ko lang po kung pwede ko na to gawin ahead of time. like keeping it in the ref a day ahead. though dapat ba lagyan na ng panko or the next day na yung panko? will any cheese do? may dala kasing white cheese yung tita ko from turkey recently, e di namin alam talaga ano gagawin dun. hoping this recipe will do since we love potatoes. thanks and keep those delicious recipe coming. hehehe :)
Oh, no, the mashed potato will dry out.
reading you posts always leave me out hungry. hayz. haha.
Hello Ms.Connie,I recently discovered your website…I learn a lot,I enjoy reading your short stories,I even read the comments.Im just a novicein cooking..I tried a couple of your recipes and my friends like it..thanks to you…I appreciate you so much…thanks for sharing your recipes.God bless you and your family!thanks a lot!!!
YUM YUM YUM! This is definitely a must try – thank you as always for such great ideas!!!
I did something very similar to this when my son was still in 6th Grade… (he’s now graduated from college…) pero hindi mozarella ang cheese that I used…just quick melt cheese. But his classmates loved it just the same! This reminds me to do it again!!! Thanks Connie!
I love this!Did you use a dipping sauce?
No but I originally wanted to drizzle them with Tabasco. Changed my mind though. :)
Changed your mind about the Tabasco as dipping sauce? Good decision. It could have overpowered the real sarap of the dish.
Yeah, although I like spice+cheese, mashed potatoes are too delicate for tabasco.
I have seen something similar on the cooking channel and I was so tempted to try it. Yours looks great!
My grandma made fried rice balls. This recipe reminds me of that.
Hi Ms. Connie.. I tried to cook this last night but it was a mess. the breadcrumbs did not stick to the potato balls and turned my cooking oil into a dark/burnt. It also rendered a bitter taste to the balls.. :(
Try again. Told you, the temperature of the oil is important. Did you bother testing with a small ball before frying the ones with cheese?
Re “the breadcrumbs did not stick to the potato balls”
Did you use panko?
Where do you get mozzarella blocks? The ones available in supermarkets become soft after leaving the fridge and becomes difficult to slice. They also don’t have the same yellow color shown in the photo.
Got mine from Shopwise.
Hi Ms. Connie, I used another brand with no indication that it is PANKO.
Another thing, I also put butter in my mashed potato. could that be another factor also?
I’ll definitely try again, kahit sayang sa cooking oil.haha ;)
Re bread crumbs: so long as it is coarse Japanese style…
Butter is essential in mashed potato. But the mashed potato itself should be rather stiff, not soft.
Oh I see, because I re-read the entry and there was no mention of butter.
Yes, my mashed potato was kinda soft. I’ll try it again and see if I get that nice golden brown balls on the photo above.
Thanks much Ms. Connie! :)
This is not a recipe for mashed potatoes. It presupposes that you have already prepared a mashed potato recipe that is stiffer than usual.
P.S. I inserted a link to the basic mashed potato recipe in the entry above.
hi ms.connie,
i tried this recipe the other day with my daughter and we had a good time doing this recipe together! :) although, some of the balls exploded in the pan i wonder why :( nonetheless, it was good, and i would like to do it again! im just thinking maybe because i didn’t use left over mashed potatoes, it was newly cooked and i just let it cooled down a bit before rolling them, could that be culprit?
thank u again!
The mashed potato mixture must be stiff.
aha!, i think it’s a bit too mushy, too much milk i guess! :)
Hi ms. connie,
Tried your recipe and my son said it so good that he can’t resist it and his going to bring it in school as his baon.
Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Keep up the good work! :)
Hi Connie!
I’ve been looking for a mozzarella sticks recipe. Do you have one? Something similar to the one in Friday’s (TGIF) with the red sauce.
Hi Connie – I tried to make these out of the mashed potato recipe you linked to in your post. Sadly, that recipe was much too soft. I had to try again with a much drier version and had better success. The family loved them.
Hope you have a great weekend.