Three Ingredient Fried Cheese Bites
And a review of Marvee's Food Shop
When I first tasted today’s recipe, I was incredibly excited. You get crazily delicious results for the effort and time required. This Cotherstone Fried Cheese Bites recipe is the last in my series of British Territorial Cheese recipes – in support of Neal’s Yard Dairy’s EAT THEM OR LOSE THEM campaign. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series, and would love to hear if you make one of the dishes! Underneath the recipe, you’ll find a review of Dom Taylor’s new restaurant Marvee’s Food Shop.
Today’s recipe knocked me for six. Never did I think that I could be enjoying fried cheese in my own home after mere minutes of effort. Fried cheese is always appealing to me. It brings holiday vibes, because Greek saganaki and mozzarella in carozza fit into the category, but also because it’s a treat food in every way. In the US jalapeño poppers, queso frito and mozzarella sticks all follow the same principle. In the UK we don’t really have a fried cheese tradition, but when our Territorial cheeses fry up so well, I think we need to take a look at ourselves and demand change.
This recipe’s success all comes down to the strength of flavour of the cheese of choice: Cotherstone. Cotherstone demonstrates how precarious British Territorials really are, nearly going extinct in 2023 when the original cheesemaker Joan retired. Fortunately, Joan’s son Gordon revived production last year. GORDON, THANK YOU!
I’ve mentioned multiple times now in the newsletter that Cotherstone and Kirkham’s Lancashire are my favourite cheeses in the world, and this recipe shows why Cotherstone is such a winning member of its British Territorials category. Its moisture content means it melts so beautifully, bringing ooziness to the centre of the cheese bites that will remind you of mozzarella. But Cotherstone packs more weight, tanginess and interest than any ball of mozz ever could. As the edges crisp up under the breadcrumbs, they develop a toastiness and their savouriness intensifies too.
I hope you’ll be as amazed and delighted as I was when you bite into these. If I ran a restaurant, I’d have these on my starters menu, and they’d never come off. They’re the ideal treat to make for a first course if you’re having people ‘round for dinner – you could warm them back up in an oven if you want to prep ahead, or do your deep frying when people arrive for a little drama. They’re so easy and good that you don’t need to be entertaining to make them though. Whip up a batch for you and your family/roommate/pet at the nearest opportunity, is all I can suggest!
You don’t need to use a big vat of oil for these as they’re so diddy. Choose a small, deep-sided frying pan and fry in batches for minimum mess (I favour an enamel milk pan for this kind of frying because it heats up fast and evenly on my smallest burner).
