Cranberry Stuffed Mozz Bricks
Cranberry Stuffed Mozz Bricks
Makes 12 thick bricks
Ingredients
Mozz Bricks
- 24 mozzarella cheese slices, cut into 1⅝” x 1½” rectangles about ¼” thick (I use cheese that comes individually prepackaged this way, and you should too if you can find it. But in case you can’t, I dusted off the old measuring tape to get you accurate specs.)
- 1 (14-oz) can Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce
- 2 cups Italian breadcrumbs
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 eggs, beaten
- Cornstarch, for dusting
- Oil, for frying
Cranch
- Leftover trimmings from the jellied cranberry sauce
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 tsp seasoned salt
- ½ tsp white pepper (or black if you don’t have white; don’t buy white pepper just for this)
- 1 tsp chopped parsley*
- 1 tsp chopped chives*
- 1 tsp chopped dill*
*It’s better to use fresh, but if you use dried I won’t judge you.
Instructions
Prep the cheese and cranberry
- Cut the cheese. If you’re not using prepackaged cheese, cut the mozzarella into 1⅝” x 1½” rectangles about ¼” thick. If you are, skip the knife work: just unwrap your cheese and get it ready to assemble.
- Cut the cranberry sauce. Plop that cranberry jiggle cylinder out of the can and set one of the mozzarella slices on top as a guide. Cut straight down along each side of it. You’ll be left with a rectangular brick of cranberry sauce and some rounded edges. Save those trimmings for the cranch. Slice the cranberry brick into slabs that are equally as thick as the cheese. You should get about 12 of them.
Assemble and freeze
- Build the stacks. Make three-layer stacks: cheese, cranberry sauce, cheese, with a fine dusting of cornstarch between each layer. The cornstarch acts like glue: as the bricks freeze, it pulls moisture out of both the cheese and the cranberry sauce and dries them together into a paste. That makes them much easier to bread.
- Freeze. Put the stacks in the freezer for an hour, or two if you’re real patient like.
Make the cranch (while the bricks freeze)
- Blend the base. In a blender, blend the cranberry trimmings and the buttermilk until pink and smooth.
- Mix and season. Pour it into a bowl and mix in the mayo, seasoned salt, pepper, parsley, chives, and dill. Taste it and add a little more salt or pepper if it needs it. If it’s too thick, thin it out with a splash more buttermilk until it’s the consistency you want.
Bread the bricks
- Set up a dredging station. Line up three bowls: one with the flour, one with the beaten eggs, and one with the breadcrumbs.
- Double dredge. Pull the bricks out of the freezer. Plop each one around in the flour until it’s covered on all sides and knock off the excess. Then coat it completely in egg, then in breadcrumbs. Really work the breadcrumbs in until it’s totally covered. Then go back into the egg and back into the breadcrumbs for a second layer. That double coat keeps the gooey cranberry innards from seeping out when you fry. We want everything contained.
- Freeze again. Once all 12 bricks are coated, put them back in the freezer while you set up a pot to fry them in.
Fry
- Heat the oil. While the bricks freeze, fill a big pot with oil for frying and bring it up to 350°F on the stove.
- Fry. Pull the bricks out of the freezer and fry them for about 4 to 5 minutes, until they’re nice and golden brown. Don’t crowd the fryer, give these puppies some space to breathe. Depending on the size of your pot, that’s probably 3 batches of 4, or 4 batches of 3, maybe even 2 batches of 6 if you’re lucky, but preferably not 6 batches of 2. That would take a long time.
Serve
- Move the bricks to a wire rack to let the oil drip off and cool slightly, but serve them pretty quick so you get a real nice cheese pull. Serve with a side of cranch for dunking. Maybe have a friend grab one end of a brick and pull it away from you while you pull in the other direction, and see how far you can go. It’s a fun little game to play with your friends at the table. Enjoy!
