Why You Can't Use Room Temperature Cheese For Mozzarella Sticks

Mozzarella sticks have yet to really catch fire on the farm to table, artisanal locavore scene. Sure, some makers are sourcing the finest cheese and carefully calibrating their breadcrumb blends, but this classic app is by and large are still the province of supermarkets and casual family dining chains (in fact, we've even ranked mozzarella sticks at chain restaurants). And they make 'em great. Preparing your own from scratch at home, however, can get you a little closer to gooey gourmandise. You just need to treat your dairy with care and cold air.

Cold mozzarella is like the King's Guard; upright, alert, and about as rigid as it's going to get. At room temperature it's a soft, sweaty mess. This makes it more challenging to cut into the requisite sticks, as fractures are more likely to occur, which could lead to breaks, creating more of a mozzarella nugget than the noble staff their title promises. You also have breading and dredging to get through before the stick even hits the oil, so you need a strong composition to make it through all that handling. So be sure to at least get your low moisture mozzarella (never fresh; even a little excess water can be dangerous to fry) before you get started.

It's kind of hard to believe that the relatively narrow gap between room temperature and cold mozzarella will make much of a difference once it's frying at 350 dang degrees Fahrenheit, but something is causing all of those sad, empty shells blighting baskets nationwide. The cheese can become too hot, melt too much, and escape, leaving someone holding the unlucky vessel. The colder temperature buys you at least a few more seconds to help prevent mozzarella stick leakage.

It's also fine to fry your mozzarella sticks from frozen, whether you've chilled them before or after breading, but you'll want to be careful to rid them of any ice that has formed, lest it react with the oil. It really cannot be emphasized enough how careful you should be to keep water away from molten oil. Whether homemade or store-bought, frozen mozzarella sticks will also cause your oil temperature to reduce faster, so make sure that you have an appropriate food thermometer on hand for consistent batches.