Cook’s notes
If you think that tossing canned tuna with mayo to make a sandwich filling is all you can do with this pantry staple, here’s a surprise.
You can mix canned tuna with grated cooked potatoes, form the mixture into balls, insert a cube of cheese at the center, roll the balls in bread crumbs and fry them. It’s like cheese-stuffed mashed potato balls but with more flavor and more protein.
So easy to make. The prep and cooling time specified in the recipe below just seems long because we started with raw potatoes which had to be boiled and grated.
If you have leftover mashed potatoes, you may use that. Note, however, that it’ll have to be firm mashed potatoes. If the mixture has too much butter and milk or cream, it will be too soft to form into balls even after the addition of tuna flakes.
Cheese-stuffed tuna and potato balls
Ingredients
- 3 potatoes 600 to 700 grams / 1.3 to 1.5 pounds total weight
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon coriander
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- ⅛ teaspoon cloves
- ¼ teaspoon thyme
- 1 can tuna in brine (160 to 185 grams / 5 to 6.5 oz) well drained
- 100 to 125 grams mozzarella (3.5 to 4.4 oz) cut into one-inch cubes
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 egg beaten
- 1 cup panko
- cooking oil for deep frying
Instructions
- Rinse the potatoes and, without peeling them, cook in boiling water for about 20 minutes.
- Drain the potatoes and dump into a bowl of iced water.
- Peel the potatoes and grate.
- In a bowl, mix the grated potatoes with the salt, pepper, paprika, turmeric, coriander, cumin, cloves and thyme.
- Flake the drained tuna and stir into the potato mixture.
- Form the tuna-potato mixture into 12 balls.
- Poke each ball with a finger, insert a cube of cheese and re-roll to seal.
- Dredge the cheese-stuffed tuna-potato balls in flour, roll in beaten egg then cover with panko.
- In a wok or frying pan, heat enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least three inches.
- When the oil is hot (350F) is the ideal temperature), fry the cheese-stuffed potato balls in batches until the crust is golden and crisp.
- Serve the cheese-stuffed tuna and potato balls immediately while the cheese inside is gooey.
Yaki onigiri