Nummy Mozzarella Sticks

This recipe is actually kind of hard. It is easy to get the ingredients set up, but then it all goes straight to hell from there. Seriously though, you should still try it.

Ingredients

12 sticks of string cheese or 12 pieces of mozzarella cut into 4 x 1/2 inch sticks

1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs
4 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
4 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour

The first time I tried this recipe, I used fresh mozzarella. Mmm. Have you ever tried it? It is so effin good. Those Italians really know what they're doing. I ate a decent amount of it while I was making the cheese sticks. I couldn't help it!

Usually fresh mozzarella comes in sealed plastic packaging and it is about the size of a baseball. I was going to grab one of those, but then I saw one that looked elongated so that it looked great for my cheese sticks!!

 

Like this.

So I got it. It actually turned out to be really annoying to cut up cause it had some pre-made cuts that made it fall apart really easily. It wasn't too TOO difficult, but I just made a second batch and I used individually packaged cheese sticks. The first step is to "dredge" the mozzarella sticks aka. drag them through all of the ingredients, beginning with the flour. I thought that the flour wouldn't stick as well to the cheese sticks, but I was wrong. I couldn't really tell a difference.

Ok so for this first part, the dredging, I used pie plates and cake pans. I set up my little workstation like an assembly line and it worked pretty well. The first pan is just straight flour. The 2nd is the eggs, slightly beaten. The third pan is the breadcrumbs, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper mixed together. So do all of that.

 Voila.

Remember at the beginning when I said this recipe was hard and it went straight to hell? It was somewhere around this eggy portion.

 

Right about....meow.

See how there are little random bits of flour throughout the plate? I'd think the pieces were entirely coated in the egg and then I'd turn it once and the egg would just like.... evaporate! Yea that sounds right. Eggs are known to evaporate at will. So yea, I had to keep turning and turning the pieces in the egg and then there were still bare spots. So I had to rub some egg on there with my fingers. It got messy.

After the egg, dredge the cheese in the breadcrumb mixture. Easy. Then once you have done this with all of your pieces, repeat the whole process. UGH!!! This measure is to make sure that the cheese is entirely coated, because otherwise the cheese could seep out while you are frying them and you end up with an empty shell and some cheese floating around in the fryer. And that would be a waste of all of your hard work!!

My near-finished product. Prettay prettay prettay good.

Now sadly, you must put your cheese sticks in the freezer for at least 2 hours. I know. It'll be ok.

After 2+ hours, you may cook your cheese sticks. We have a deep fryer, so we used that on 350. If you don't have one, you can cook them in a large pot with Canola oil. The instructions for that are on the original website here. They also have a buttermilk dip that goes with the cheese sticks, but I made it and it didn't taste that great. Then again I substituted about half of the fresh ingredients with crappy seasoning so that might have... everything to do with it.

Sorry there are no post-fryer pics. They just didn't last long enough. We dipped them in marinara and it was heavenly. Bellissimo!

Also, in case I haven't sold you yet, maybe a review from Senior Food Critic Meredith "BigJugs" DeViney will do it - "Delicous [sic] yes melty." Well you heard it straight from the Hawk's mouth! Now go out and get you some!!

Update: I was able to take a picture with Dennis' phone of my awesome 2nd batch. I cut the mozzarella sticks in half before I dredged them. Here they are on a plate with some marinara sauce. Mmm...